Te Amo
by Eventhorizon7
Summary: When Sam and Daniel are taken prisoner, the ensuing traumatic events change them forever.  Sam/Daniel love story
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This story was originally posted on Heliopolis a few years back and it was the first SG-1 fanfic I ever wrote. I've dusted it off and made some revisions in the hope that the story reads better than it did originally. **

**Please note this is a dark story, dealing with a subject matter that wasn't dealt with very often on the show itself... torture. There are parts that are quite traumatic, so anyone who doesn't like that kind of thing should steer well away... the Brit isn't pulling any punches!**

**It is also a Sam/Daniel love story.**

**Let me know what you think and don't be lulled into a false sense of security with the first couple of chapters...**

**Te Amo:**

**Chapter 1:**

"We look forward to the continuation of our trade negotiations with the people of your world, Dr Jackson," the village elder bowed solemnly toward the archaeologist, "I'm sure that there is much that our cultures can learn from one another."

Daniel winced inwardly at the implied slight embedded within the elder's words before reluctantly and somewhat uncomfortably returning the bow.

"Oh... I don't think that's gonna happen," beside him, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter repatriated her P90 from the hands of one of the men that surrounded them, her trained eye checking it over to see if it was still serviceable, "you kissed goodbye to any chance you had at establishing trading links with our world the minute '**we' **met."

She made a deliberate show of locking and loading the weapon, sliding the bolt back with easy movements, sending a round into its chamber.

The elder gave her a contemptible look, his cheeks flushing a violent shade of puce at the audacity of her words.

"This is absolutely outrageous," he spluttered feebly, his gaze turning back toward Daniel, "we insist that your woman apologise."

Carter swung the P90 over her shoulder with an exasperated shrug.

"You can insist as much as you want, but I wouldn't go holding your breath."

With that she pivoted on her heel and began to march out of the village, kicking up small clouds of dust in her wake.

'_So much for submissive and contrite,'_ Daniel thought as he shrugged apologetically at the group of village elders who were looking at him in a way that could only be described as sorely disgruntled. Cupping his hands in the compliant gesture that he had been taught upon their arrival, he bade the elders farewell before taking off in the direction of his friend.

"Sam? Hey! Hold up a minute."

The dust cloud kicked up by her more than hasty retreat enveloped his face, plastering his glasses in a coating of sandstone coloured debris. He yanked them off, using the hem of his BDU jacket to wipe them clean before hurriedly replacing them.

Much to his annoyance he found that Sam hadn't heeded his request to slow down, if anything it seemed as though she had lengthened her stride. All he could see in the early morning sunshine was the silhouette of her gradually receding form.

He sighed to himself.

The morning was clear and bright, the sky a cloudless cerulean blue. Even this early in the morning the sun was strong and a heat haze wavered across the horizon. Daniel found himself breaking out in a sweat as he trudged along the well worn path, the perspiration prickling uncomfortably against his skin. He was desperate to shrug out of his jacket, and the pack that he was carrying was beginning to bite into his shoulder.

However, he knew better than to stop because he could tell by her body language that Sam had no such compulsion.

He quickened his pace, almost running in order to catch her up. Up ahead he saw her stop at a fork in the road in order to take her bearings. He sucked in a lungful of humid air and jogged up to her, a little ashamed that he seemed so out of shape and reminded himself that he would have to put that right once he got back on base.

"You know… I realise that the past few days haven't been a ball of fun for you but…" he hesitated, carefully choosing his next words, mindful of the situation that they had just extracted themselves from, "…I think what you did back there was a little out of line."

He grimaced as the words left his mouth, realising that they hadn't come across as sympathetic as he had hoped they would.

"Excuse me?" Sam turned to face him, her cheeks aglow with a flush of crimson that was not entirely caused by the speed march she had just undertaken. "You think I was out of line?" Her blue eyes, normally placid and engaging, blazed instead with a heated fury. "I'll tell you what was out of line, Daniel... spending three days of my life being totally ignored by everyone in that sorry excuse of a village just because my gender is deemed insignificant by the ruling majority."

Her gaze blazed a fiery trail across his face, daring him to show even the slightest disagreement of her assessment.

As much as he loved his work, there were times when he truly hated it and the last few days had only reinforced that feeling.

Their introduction to the people of P5J 794 hadn't gotten off to an auspicious start.

As befitting her rank Sam had introduced herself first to the assembled village elders before presenting Daniel. The elders had reacted with a surprising amount of unconcealed contempt and had prompted Daniel to ensure that, "…his woman hold her tongue." Incredulous at their remark, Sam had tried to explain the situation, but things had only gotten worse.

One of the elder's nearest her had reacted angrily, striking out with his hand, intending to land a savage blow toward Sam's face. Only her quick reflexes and training had stopped the blow from landing, but in the process she had grabbed the elder's wrist in a combat hold causing him to gasp in pain.

The situation had deteriorated rapidly after that.

The elder's had refused to speak to Daniel as long as Sam was present. Due to the expediency and importance of the mission that they had been given, Sam had reluctantly stepped aside, bowing to the wishes of the elders, and had tried instead to learn more about the village from the rest of the inhabitants.

However, it soon became apparent that word had gotten out that the female traveller was not to be communicated with. Every man in the village shunned her, turning their backs to her as she had approached them. On an emotional level Daniel had found it very difficult to converse with the elders knowing that Sam was being deliberately ostracised by the male population of the village.

It had become almost unbearable when it also became evident that the female villagers had been barred from speaking with her too.

For three days she had been totally and systematically ignored.

To make matters worse their weapons, the pack containing their MRE's and their water had mysteriously vanished on their first night, and had only been returned to them that morning when Daniel had made it clear that they were leaving.

"You know, Sam, this isn't the first time that we've come across a paternal society that suppresses its women."

Daniel remembered one of their first trips through the Stargate when the then Captain Carter had been treated in a similar way, although remembering how that had turned out, he realised that it probably wasn't the best comparison.

Sam impaled him with an icy glare.

"Are you suggesting that I should be used to it?"

"Well…no…but..." he stammered.

"Or perhaps you are suggesting that I should just accept it... is that it?"

She shook her head in disbelief.

Daniel wanted to say something to calm her, he opened his mouth, but before he could say anything she cut him off.

"Maybe you think that in situations like this we should go back to how it was in the beginning... when female members of the SGC skipped these kind of meet and greets... because if you are..."

"That's not what I'm saying.. what I'm trying to say is although it's wrong, and I'd be the first to say that it is, these people know no different. For centuries this is how they have lived their lives and it's not going to change overnight. We can't expect it to change just because they meet us… it's asking too much…and whether you like it or not…we are going to keep running into this crap."

Sam ran a hand through her short cropped blonde hair.

"You know something? I could have endured it, suffered their petty prejudices if it had led to something... if we had found that Ancient repository that we've been looking for... but no... all we got was squat!"

She pulled a battered looking baseball cap out of a pocket and jammed it on her head with an angry tug.

"What the hell were SG-9 thinking when they asked us to check this place out? How could their Intel have been so screwed up?" She planted her hands upon her hips and gave Daniel an aggrieved look. "We've wasted three days that we couldn't afford to waste. We could have been helping Mitchell and the others search one of the other quadrants. I bet they have had a more fruitful time of it than we've had."

Although he tried desperately to stop it, Daniel felt the side of his mouth quirk upward as a grin began to spread across his face.

Sam held up a finger in warning.

"Don't you dare!"

She pinned him with another withering glare, one so intimidating that he wondered if she actually practiced it in the mirror. No wonder veteran airmen were known to cower when they had been on the receiving end of that look.

"That whole sorry episode stays between you and me," she made sure that he got the point by jabbing her index finger non to gently against his chest, "otherwise..."

The rest was left ominously unsaid, but Daniel knew that if he told anyone about what had happened on their second night, Sam would likely have his guts for garters, along with more intimate parts of his male anatomy.

Thinking that the matter was resolved, Sam turned back toward the direction that she had been looking in earlier, her mind obviously focused once more on finding the Stargate and getting them both off of the planet.

"You know you really shouldn't talk to your husband that way..."

She had taken a couple of steps forward before his words hit home, her body jerking to a halt as though she had taken a couple of snub nosed rounds in the back. She pivoted around so quickly to face him again that he was amazed at how well she had kept her balance.

Even with his vast knowledge of ancient and alien languages, he found it hard to find a word that could describe the look that she gave him.

Prudence would dictate that he should let the matter drop and that he shouldn't antagonise her anymore, especially when she was still pissed at the way she had been treated by the villagers.

However, much to Daniel's surprise he found that prudence seemed to be taking the day off.

"You were the one that accepted that piece of fruit, so technically… in the eyes of the elders we're…"

Sam gesticulated wildly with her right hand.

"If someone..." she gazed pointedly in his direction, "... had actually taken the time to speak to me... maybe... just maybe I would have known the consequences attached to taking that particular piece of fruit from you."

Daniel squirmed a little under the weight of her stare.

"I tried to warn you... I raised my eyebrows when you reached for it..."

"That was a warning?"

She looked incredulously at him.

"What else was I supposed to do...they were watching me... they had barred me from having any communication with you."

"How was I suppose to know that was a warning? I was damn hungry, Daniel, they hadn't fed me all day and the goddamn bowl was full of that particular piece of fruit." She threw her hands up in the air in disgust. "Talk about loading the dice! How was I to know that by taking that fruit from you... I was declaring my acceptance of our marriage?"

She muttered something that sounded like a profanity and turned around again, signalling to him her intention that the conversation was over. He watched her make her way along the dusty path, checking her compass points as she retraced their journey back to the Stargate.

They carried on walking for most of the morning. Sam's mood lightening considerably as the distance between them and the village grew. By mid-day they had made good time and by Daniel's estimation they would reach the valley that housed the Stargate by early afternoon.

He was weary, the intense heat and humidity culminating in an uncomfortable sluggishness. His stomach growled with hunger pangs, reminding him of the fact that in their hasty departure they had forgone breakfast.

"Sam…hold up."

He walked over to the side of the trail and slumped down on the grass.

Slipping his water bottle from its holder he unscrewed the cap and swallowed a couple of tepid mouthfuls. He felt Sam settle next to him, a tired sigh breaking from her lips. He proffered his water bottle toward her, which she gratefully accepted and he watched as she sipped thoughtfully at its contents.

"Feeling better?"

She nodded an affirmative and took another sip of the warm water before replacing the cap and handing the bottle back to him. He stowed it away and then started rummaging in his pack for provisions. He brought out a handkerchief sized parcel and started to untie it. Inside were a few pieces of bread, some cheese and a purplish- greenish coloured fruit. He lay the handkerchief on the ground between them and handed Sam a piece of bread.

"One of the women slipped it to me as we were leaving the tent this morning." He took a bite into a piece of cheese, chewing it thoughtfully. "Guess she thought that I needed to keep my strength up."

"Lucky you, the only thing I received this morning were a couple of contemptible looks from the elders."

Daniel continued to share the remainder of the meagre meal between them until only the piece of fruit was left. Sam eyed it suspiciously as though it were some kind of booby trap.

Seeing the expression on her face, Daniel chortled softly to himself.

"I can assure you, Sam, this is not a piece of forbidden fruit."

"It's okay, Daniel, you have it. I'm not hungry anymore."

He knew that was a lie because he knew damn well that she hadn't eaten anything, apart from the bread and cheese, since the whole debacle with the fruit basket the night before. He pulled his commando knife out of its scabbard and began cutting the fruit into segments. He popped one of the pieces into his mouth and closed his eyes as he slowly chewed it.

"Hmmm, delicious."

He opened his eyes and glanced at her, noticing that a broad smile was playing across her lips. Teasingly he popped another juice laden segment into his mouth.

"Want to try some of my fruit, Sam?"

He waggled his eyebrows solicitously.

Sam giggled.

"You're incorrigible."

She moved her hand toward the handkerchief and snagged a segment of fruit with her fingers and popped it into her mouth. She grabbed another piece and together they devoured the impromptu dessert.

As he ate, Daniel's mind wandered back to the night before.

_It had been a long and embarrassing night, made all the worse by the fact that Sam had been manhandled into his tent by the village elders. Before her entrance, it had been made abundantly clear to Daniel that he was expected to partake of his marital rights, and if necessary this should be undertaken without his newly acquired wife's consent. _

_Even now he could still see the look of repulsion and anger that had spread across Sam's face as she became aware of the situation. It had taken all of his powers of persuasion to convince her that come the morning she had to look contrite and submissive, because in all honesty he hadn't known how the villagers would have reacted if they had found out that the intended consummation of their marriage had never taken place._

His train of thought was broken by Sam.

"Time to go." She stood up, shouldering her P90 once more. "It's only a few more miles to the gate."

Daniel hesitated for a moment, watching her as she started back down the trail again, then stowing away his commando knife and handkerchief, he set off after her.

A couple of hours later they had made it to the path that lead down into the narrow valley that housed the Stargate. A few feet ahead of him he saw Sam slow her pace and when he tried to pass her, she threw out an arm to bar his way.

"What's up?"

"I'm not sure," she pointed toward the clearing that was nestled at the bottom of the valley, "but something feels wrong."

Daniel's eyes narrowed in concern.

"What do you mean... wrong?"

Sam pulled a pair of field glasses out of a pocket in her BDU's and began to scan the immediate area.

"I can't put my finger on it. It's a feeling more than anything else. It might be nothing..."

"...or it might be something." Daniel finished.

After ten years of being in the field together certain little idiosyncrasies had rubbed off on each of them and Daniel knew from experience to trust Sam's gut instincts. Gently he took the field glasses from her hand and stared through them.

The Stargate was nestled in the apex of the valley, atop a stone plinth with a flight of steps that led down to the DHD. A horseshoe shaped deciduous forest acted as a perimeter, its tall trees screening the valley from three sides.

"There's nothing down there, Sam, not even the cows that were pastured there when we arrived." Daniel's mouth twisted upward in a small grimace. Lowering the field glasses, he looked back at his friend. "I can't say that my boots will be lamenting their loss."

Sam ran a hand across the base of her neck, an unconscious habit that she had whenever something was troubling her.

Daniel doubted that she was even aware that she did it.

"Maybe it's the absence of the cows. Maybe they've been moved to a new pasture?" Moving the hand away from her neck, she used it to shield her eyes against the bright sunlight as she continued to stare down into the valley. "It has been three days."

"It hasn't stopped that internal radar of yours from pinging though, has it?"

She shook her head.

"No, it hasn't."

She took the field glasses back from him and swept the valley with them once more.

"Do you think it could be the Ori, they were spotted on several of the planets adjacent to this one?" Daniel shifted position slightly, easing the load on his back. "This planet would be ripe for a visit by a Prior."

"If you ask me they would be preaching to the converted, that damn village is halfway there already with its Medieval attitude. Serves themselves right if they fall foul of the Priors. Maybe a little prostration to the 'All Hallowed Ones' will teach them a lesson."

"You don't mean that, Sam."

Daniel's words were soft and just a little reproachful.

"You're right," she looked at him, the contrition in her blue eyes palpable, "nobody deserves the Priors."

"But do you think it might be them?"

"I don't think so, if it were a Prior or a detachment of Ori soldiers we'd be able to see them. Stealth isn't their thing... they prefer a full frontal attack." She shook her head softly from side to side. "I'm not even sure if it's anything at all. Could just be that the last few days have me irrationally on edge."

Daniel pulled his bandana from a pocket and wrapped it about his head, carefully tightening it at the back.

"So what do you think we ought to do?"

Sam was quiet for a long moment, and Daniel knew that she was thinking through their options.

"We can't avoid going down there, it's our only means of getting home. So I guess we go check it out," she released the safety on her weapon, "but let's take it slow, keep an eye out for anything that doesn't sit right because this damn pinging isn't going away."

She nestled the P90 tightly against her right shoulder, her index finger resting against the trigger as she sighted down the barrel, training the weapon upon the adjacent tree-line.

Daniel followed suit as he took up a similar stance, his own weapon sweeping the opposite tree-line. They covered the ground back to back, protecting each other, walking crab-like until they reached the clearing that housed the Stargate.

When they reached the stone steps that housed the DHD, Sam took up a position at the foot of the dais, sweeping the P90 in a wide arc, making a final check of the surrounding area. Satisfied that it was clear, she nodded to Daniel who, having shed his cumbersome pack, climbed the stone steps cautiously; when he reached the DHD he swept his hand across the large glyphs and activated the first chevron.

As the chevron engaged... all hell broke loose.


	2. Chapter 2

**Te Amo**

**Chapter 2**

A fuselage of weapons fire broke out around them, sending them scurrying for cover behind the back of the DHD.

Two men broke from the cover of the nearest tree line, heading straight in their direction, each brandishing what looked to be large plasma guns. The discharges from their weapons hit the stone steps that led up to the dais, sending sharp, splinters of debris flying in all directions.

Sam and Daniel ducked lower as the shrapnel began to rain down, but at the same time another burst of weapons fire hit the consol sending a spider web of blue static cascading down its length, narrowly missing them.

Daniel edged out from behind the consol and sent a burst of gunfire toward the direction of the men, watching with concealed despair as both tumbled limply to the ground. No matter how many times he found himself in this situation, being forced to defend himself and his team always left a sour taste in his mouth.

"Two more eight o'clock!" Sam twisted away from Daniel and fired her P90 at the base of the tree-line, a scream of pain confirming that she had hit her targets. "Who the hell are these people and what do they want with us?"

"Hell if I know."

The air was quickly becoming thick with the acrid smell of cordite, and a thin layer of smoke began to drift across the impromptu battlefield causing Daniel's eyes to water as he tried to blink past the discomfort.

Another wave of attackers broke from the cover of the tree line, and Sam cut them down with a short burst from her P90. The melodic sound of the ejected shell casings hitting the stone steps seemed to interlace with the whine from the incoming plasma rounds.

Daniel was in the process of ejecting an empty clip from his weapon when his peripheral vision picked out the shape of two men stalking their way through the long grass to the right of the dais. He quickly changed magazines and laid down a blanket of bullets in their direction, taking no satisfaction from the sound of their injured screams.

"Whoever they are, Sam, they're persistent."

"Daniel!"

Daniel turned at the sound of Sam's cry, just in time to see a young boy barrelling down on him, a charged plasma gun in his hand. Instinctively he swung the P90 in a wide arc, but his finger hesitated on the trigger.

He was only a boy, not more than seventeen at most.

What was a boy doing trying to kill them?

Indecision reverberated through Daniel's mind, warring with his instincts for self preservation.

The boy continued his relentless surge in his direction, blue plasma fire scything through the air. A nearby strike from the weapon hit the main console of the DHD, singeing Daniel's hair. A second hit bore a deep hole in the dais steps, sending fragments of masonry into Daniel's face.

Clarity returned amid the sting of pain and Daniel raised his weapon, but already he could see that it was too late, the plasma weapon was already in the process of releasing its next deadly charge.

He braced himself for the impact, knowing that it would be the last thing that he would ever feel.

Something metallic and silver flashed across his peripheral vision and the next thing he knew a heavy blow was sending him sprawling across the stone steps. He hit the ground hard, jarring his right shoulder, sending red hot tendrils of pain coursing through it. The plasma bolt smashed into the place he had just vacated, tearing up chunks of stone and blackening the dais.

He watched mesmerised as Sam's commando knife embedded itself in the boy's throat, a fine arc of blood spraying from the wound. The boy fell to his knees, clawing ineffectually at his neck, inarticulate gurgling sounds emanating from his mouth as it filled with blood. He fell forward onto the grass, his body twitching several times before finally going still.

Daniel's eyes locked with the concerned but determined blue of Sam's. A brief unvoiced message passed between them and Daniel nodded curtly, letting her know that he was alright and that his earlier indecision wouldn't be reappearing. He scrambled back behind the dais, weapon raised and poised to repel any further attack.

"Ten o'clock!" Sam sprayed the area with bullets, the return fire causing her to duck back behind the relative safety of the dais. "We can't stay here. We've got to try and make it to the shelter of the trees."

"We'll never make it, Sam," Daniel shook his head emphatically, "that's where most of the firing's coming from."

At that moment another attacker broke from cover on Daniel's right, a second doing the same on Sam's left. Without a word they braced themselves back to back and brought their assailants down with a volley of gunfire.

"That's it... I'm out!"

Daniel tossed his empty P90 to the ground.

He activated his zat, hearing the distinctive whine of the weapon as it charged up.

"SG-1 you are surrounded. It is pointless to continue. Throw down your weapons and surrender."

Sam sent a defiant few rounds in the direction of the voice.

Her P90 clicked on empty.

"Damn! Now what?"

Pulling her Beretta from her holster, she pulled back the slide sending one of their last fifteen rounds of ammunition into the chamber.

"This is not looking good," her eyes met with Daniel's, "do you think you can dial the gate if I give you covering fire?"

"I can give it a try."

He tentatively peered over the edge of the DHD, going over in his mind the positioning of the symbols that would take them home. Sam positioned herself close to him, the Beretta held steadily in a double handed grip. She sucked in a deep lungful of air and expelled it in a rush.

She nodded.

They rose together and Daniel's hand moved toward the chevrons. Sam let rip into the tree-line with a triple burst of gunfire.

The answering salvo had both of them ducking back behind the comforting bulk of the dial home device.

"I guess that option's now out."

Daniel couldn't help feeling that the situation was rapidly deteriorating. Sam only had a few rounds left in the Beretta and his Zat wasn't exactly the kind of weapon that was needed to eliminate a seemingly endless supply of would be attackers.

A continuous burst of gunfire had Sam throwing herself against Daniel's body as the bullets tore up the steps beside her, but not before several slivers of broken stone peppered her face, cutting into the soft flesh.

"Damn."

She wiped the blood away with the back of her hand.

"Surely you must see that you are outnumbered," the voice they had heard earlier had been replaced with another, but this one sounded just as determined as its predecessor, "it is time to surrender!"

"Sam?"

Daniel nudged her elbow and she turned to look at him.

He inclined his head in the direction of a group of men that were steadily making their way toward them, each armed with an array of assorted weapons.

Even if they used up the last of their ammunition it could only end one way.

He wasn't the only one coming to that unpleasant conclusion.

"I hate doing this!" Sam sighed heavily before making safe her Beretta and tossing it onto the ground in front of her.

Daniel followed suit.

He chanced a look in her direction and found her scrutinizing him with her soft blue eyes. She gave him a small nod of the head and together they rose slowly to their feet, arms raised in joint surrender.

A pair of gruff hands grabbed a handful of Sam's BDU's, spinning her around so that she was facing Daniel. Her right arm was wrenched behind her back, causing her to hiss in pain. Another captor began patting her down, taking a little longer than was necessary as he came to certain parts of her anatomy, much to the glee and cajolement of the man holding her.

"Leave her alone."

Daniel's objection earned him a painful backhand across the mouth.

Across from him he saw Sam wince in silent sympathy.

The man searching her gave him a snide smile before resuming his task, his hands deliberately roaming slowly over her body, lingering on her breasts, thighs and ass. Daniel knew that he was only doing it to increase his feelings of impotency and that feeling only intensified when he saw the look of disgust that slipped across his friends features.

Their captor removed her IDC, handing it off to a colleague who placed it inside a well worn canvas bag. Her GDO soon followed. Daniel went through the same routine, albeit without the humiliating manhandling that his friend had been forced to endure.

Daniel peered at the rag tag bunch that surrounded them finding himself at a loss as to who they were. There was no discernable identification to be made by the clothes that they wore, in fact they seemed to be dressed much like many of the inhabitants of the countless planets that they had visited over the past decade.

Daniel's train of thought was brutally derailed as his arm was wrenched painfully up his back, eliciting a pained gasp as the tendons and surrounding muscles were yanked in directions they didn't necessarily want to go.

He felt the barrel of a handgun dig into the small of his back and he was pushed none too gently forward.

"Move!"

He stepped around the DHD, allowing his captor to guide him toward the centre of the clearing. From behind he heard Sam utter a soft curse. He tried to look around, but the barrel of the weapon dug deeper into his spine, and he reluctantly resisted the urge to look behind him again.

He hated not knowing what was happening to Sam.

They were frog marched to the centre of the clearing, where more of the small army that had been assembled to capture them began to appear from their concealment in the trees. Daniel's initial calculation had them numbering at least three dozen and he wasn't sure if he should be impressed or insulted that it had taken that many to subdue them.

The limited firepower that he and Sam had possessed would never have been enough to overpower that many people and he had to wonder who it might be that wanted them so badly that they had sent a well equipped mercenary outfit to apprehend them.

When they reached the centre of the clearing they stopped and to Daniel's surprise the men holding them released them, stepping back a pace or two, but keeping their weapons levelled at their backs.

As he watched, the crowd around them slowly began to part revealing a figure who stepped forward. He was tall with long ringlets of bright auburn hair that almost reached his shoulders. His face was hard set and crisscrossed with scars that told of a life spent in almost continuous battle.

His left arm was bleeding and wrapped in a makeshift dressing, he cradled it gingerly across his body with the support of his right hand.

Green hooded eyes passed slowly over his prisoners.

"So you are the infamous SG1." His voice sounded disdainful, and the look that he gave them indicated that he wasn't overly impressed with them. He nodded sharply to one of the men at his side. "Take them to the ship, Kefflin wishes to interrogate them personally."

Daniel's gaze slipped toward Sam, catching the small frown that creased her forehead, seeing in her eyes the same look of concern that he knew she would be able to see in his.

A shiver of trepidation slivered down his spine.

Kefflin!

Their situation had just gone from bad to worse in the space of a couple of syllables.

One of the men in front of him raised their arm, slipping back the sleeve of his tunic to reveal on his forearm a device that looked much like one of their own GDO's. He tapped a couple of buttons and the telltale sound of a ring platform engaging filled the quiet clearing. The ring system encompassed them, along with their guards, beaming them aboard the awaiting vessel that had been orbiting the planet. Transfer, as always, was over in a matter of seconds and the clearing was replaced by the familiar opulent decor of the inside of a Goa'uld mother ship.

They were pushed unceremoniously forward, down the lavish corridor, past the once impressive bronzed walls ornately etched with raised Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols. Once, a long time ago, those symbols would have mesmerised both him and his companion, but now they no longer held his attention.

Sam tried to slow her pace, taking surreptitious glances along each of the corridors leading off the main thoroughfare. Daniel knew what she was doing because he was doing the exact same thing. Years of fieldwork, and more than their fair share of being in the hands of an enemy, had trained them to quickly orientate themselves when taken aboard an enemy ship. No doubt Sam was already memorising the many corridors and landings that they had already passed, just as he was trying to remember little landmarks so that he could calculate just how far they had come from the ring room.

In the lucky event that they managed to escape, this little bit of impromptu recon could come in handy.

They passed a couple of open rooms, a brief glance showed that they were nothing more than storage rooms. At the next intersection they turned right heading down a similar corridor before stopping at one of the doors. The guard keyed in a command code and the door slid apart, revealing a holding cell. Together they were brusquely pushed into the cell and the door was re-engaged, sliding back across its housing with a reverberating clunk.

Daniel expelled a long breath.

"Well this day just keeps getting better and better."

He ran a hand across his face, gingerly prodding the side of his mouth, his fingers came away with small spots of semi dried blood on them. He sighed, wiping the blood off his fingers by running them down the front of his BDU. He gave the room a cursory glance.

How many times had they found themselves incarcerated in a room just like this?

Enough times, he decided, to know without looking that the only seating would be the floor. Pushing himself back against the ship's bulkhead, he let his tired body slide down the wall until it met the ground.

The room's lighting was diffused, it's only illumination coming from a single wall mounted torch, that served to casts long shadows in all directions. He could see Sam's hands running across the nearest wall, searching for an access panel, a means to get into the ships electrical systems and possibly a way for them to bypass the security protocols and enable them to open the doors. It had become almost standard operating procedure in a situation like this. She did a couple of circuits of the room, after which she stood with her hands on her hips and frowned.

"What's up?"

"There isn't an access panel, or more to the point, where it should be has been covered over with a new panel." She pointed toward the corner of the room, "Someone's done their homework, it goes from floor to ceiling and there is no way that I can access it from in here."

She ran frustrated fingers through her short cropped hair.

"Kefflin!" The name tasted like acid on Daniel's tongue. "Remind me, isn't he the same sadistic son of a bitch that Cam impersonated last year?"

"The very same." She scrubbed a forefinger and thumb against her eyes. "At least we know who they are now." She didn't have to elaborate on that statement for Daniel to understand what she meant. They were now the esteemed guests of the Lucien Alliance. Knowing who his enemy was didn't exactly give Daniel a warm fuzzy feeling inside. He watched as Sam finished her latest circuit around the holding cell and came over to where he sat. Gingerly lowering herself to the floor she sat crossed legged in front of him. "Guess the bounty must still be in force, otherwise why go to all the bother?"

"We hit one of their Casa convoys last month." Daniel slid off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose against the dull ache of the headache that was threatening to bloom. He squinted at her in the gloom. "Guess they're really pissed huh?"

"Which means?"

Sam quirked up an eyebrow, the unasked question posed within her facial expression, although she needn't have bothered because Daniel was already on the same page.

"They are going to try and use us to get to the others. " He slid his glasses back on and looked at her with concerned eyes. "So just how much trouble do you think we are in anyhow?"

"On a scale of one to ten?" Daniel nodded in return. "Well, given who it is, I'd say it's about a high end nine at least."

"Great!"

He had assumed as much himself, but it hadn't helped to hear her confirm it.

"Daniel," Sam's voice had lowered to almost a whisper and her face turned from concerned to solemn, "they are going to use some pretty nasty methods to extract what they need to know."

"Which you and I both know is a military euphemism for?"

She looked at him, the soft blue of her eyes widening slightly in the glint from the one small light source in the room. They had been through this situation countless times before. First with the Goa'uld and then with the Replicators. He knew the drill. Knew what lay ahead and knew that he would once again have to fight his own personal demons.

Torture.

Such a small word to convey such a wide range of nightmarish scenarios.

"Daniel, no matter what he does to us…,"

"…we give nothing up."

It wasn't forced bravado. He knew as well as she did that they were shoring up each other's defences, putting their faith in one another in order to help each other through the ordeal to come. Something ugly and painful was heading their way, he could feel it and by the look in Sam's eyes he knew that she felt it too. By the same token he knew that Sam was more prepared to deal with it than he would ever be.

The door to the cell opened and two guards stepped inside brandishing plasma weapons.

Rising slowly to her feet, Sam took in the guards appearance, her gaze slipping over the weapons that they had pointing at them, then she focused her attention once more on Daniel. Something changed in her demeanour, a tightening of her resolve, determination shining from her eyes.

He almost felt the military bulwark fall into position.

"Showtime."

One of the guards grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Kefflin's chambers were nothing like how Sam had imagined it. In fact the room that she and Daniel had been brought to didn't so much resemble living quarters than that of a Medieval torture chamber.

Which seemed pretty apt given the man's reputation.

Racks of sharp, elongated implements lined all four walls. Swords, shields, lances and maces, together with a few dozen nasty looking weapons that she had once seen inside the dojo of a reprehensible Jaffa master. On one wall alone she counted at least two dozen Goa'uld firebrands and she tampered down a shiver as her mind supplied her with a vivid memory of how those particular weapons exacted their pain.

Of course any one of the weapons lining the walls could aid in any escape that she and Daniel made, but the problem would be getting to them. It hadn't escaped her notice that most, if not all, appeared to be concealed behind a force shield.

In front of them was a desk, its surface strewn with papers and reports, she supposed that it was the Lucien Alliance's one concession to conducting themselves as though they were a legitimate enterprise. No doubt the reports noted the quantities of the addictive drug Casa being produced throughout the galaxy, along with perhaps information pertaining to the latest sabotage attempt conducted by the SGC.

Leaning casually against the desk, one foot resting against a footstool was Kefflin.

He was tall, around the same height as Daniel and Cam, and Sam immediately understood why the latter had chosen to impersonate him last year. In his late thirties, he carried himself with an unchallenged arrogance that suggested that he wasn't the least bit threatened by those members of the Alliance that surrounded him.

His long mousey hair was pulled back into an untidy ponytail, revealing a battle hardened face whose main talking point was the long puckered scar than ran from his left temple to chin. He wore a black and grey tunic, the dull glint of four small brass roundels running diagonally from shoulder to breast, the only indication of his rank of commander in this wannabe army. Tight black pants and a pair of shiny knee-length leather boots completed the dress ensemble.

Only the Goa'uld firebrand seemed out of place, nestled under his right arm in an almost comic rendition of a field marshals baton.

It was his eyes that unsettled Sam the most. They were cold and unyielding, their greyness speaking of a malevolence barely kept in check and capable of the most unspeakable evils.

She felt her blood run cold.

His grey eyes swept across her body, lingering upon her breasts, before letting them wander across the rest of her appreciatively, his tongue sneaking out to wet his bottom lip in a predatory gesture that Sam knew was intended to intimidate her. He seemed genuinely surprised when his gaze locked with hers again to find, not the look of apprehension or fear he had been expecting, but an unexpected defiance instead.

A thin smile crossed his lips at the challenge thrown down and so steadfastly met.

His attention shifted toward Daniel, the grey eyes appraising him with curiosity as, so often in Daniel's case, the initial first impression failed to reveal the complexities of the man standing before him.

It had been a mistake many people had carelessly made.

To the untrained eye, Daniel still had the geeky look of an academic, too consumed by his passion for archaeology and linguistics to seriously pose a threat. In this room, only Sam knew of the long journey Daniel had been forced to make from scholar to warrior, and how adept a warrior he had become, and only she knew the truth about just how dangerous any misconception about him could be.

Kefflin finished his appraisal of them, pushing away from the desk, walking slowly behind it.

"SG-1 has caused my organisation a great deal of trouble. My predecessor, Na-tan was deficient in his response to your threat, deeming the Tau'ri of little consequence. He paid the ultimate price for his stupidity."

He placed his hands palm down on the desk.

"You will find that I am not of the same opinion. You are a disease that blights my operation, and I aim to cut out that disease and restore health to my enterprise." His eyes narrowed slightly. "I have many questions to which I shall have answers, least of all the whereabouts of the rest of your team and the dialling codes to your world, but first there is something else I wish to know."

His hand opened a drawer that was out of Sam's line of sight, dipping inside to take out an object. When he withdrew it he was holding a commando knife, its stainless steel blade dulled by a thick coppery sheen of encrusted blood.

Sam's heart missed a beat.

"Which one of you is responsible for this?"

Adrenaline shot gunned through her body causing perspiration to prickle across her skin. At the same moment her mouth went inexplicably dry.

It was a feeling she knew well.

Fight or flight.

Except in this case she could do neither.

"I want to know which one of you is responsible for this?"

Kefflin's voice was calm, but a darkness in his eyes showed her that he was fighting to keep in check an inner maelstrom. He placed the knife on a relatively empty section of the desk and pushed the tip of it with his index finger, sending it spinning in slow circles as the perfectly balanced military blade spun around on its hilt.

His eyes shifted their gaze from her to Daniel and back again, waiting for the moment when one little slip, a short darting glance, would betray the identity of the person responsible. Sam stood firm, fixing her gaze upon one of the racks of weapons that were housed behind Kefflin's back and prayed that Daniel would do the same.

"You appear to believe that maintaining your silence is an option," Kefflin's voice was flecked with scorn, "let me confirm for you that this misconception would be an unwise move on your part. It would be better to tell me now than to suffer the consequences of your continued silence."

His eyes narrowed.

"To whom does this knife belong?"

Sam could feel her body tensing, her senses sharpening, her mind beginning to focus more intently upon the dangerous man that stood behind the desk. Their options were practically nonexistent, they had no weapons and no place to escape to.

Kefflin's patience, obviously something that he never held in real abundance, snapped and he slammed his fist against the surface of the desk, sending reports and papers jumping with the impact.

"Tell Me!"

Sam felt a shift in the air as one of the guards left his position behind her and came to stand in front of her. He was large, stocky and smelt of days old sweat. His leering gaze was rheumy and his mouth cracked open in a lopsided smile that revealed a row of cracked and blackened teeth. His fetid breath almost made her gag with its stench.

"I shall have my answer." Kefflin emerged from behind the desk and took up a position next to the guard, the firebrand gripped tightly in his right hand. He flicked a switch on the long iron handle and it sizzled into life, a soft amber light glowing at its tip. "How much pain you have to endure is now entirely up to you."

Sam was trying hard not to let Kefflin see the trepidation that was beginning to build in intensity within her. Instead she stared at the glowing tip of the firebrand before slowly moving her eyes up to meet with the sinister grey orbs of her captor.

Kefflin didn't take his eyes off her, but she detected a slight change in his stance, a slight dropping of one shoulder, enough to telegraph without words a message to the man at his side.

The guard rammed his fist into her solar plexus, causing her to grunt as the impact forced all the air out of her lungs. As she doubled over, he grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her upright.

He smashed a meaty fist across her jaw.

Warm, metallic blood began to fill her mouth, but she resisted the urge to spit it out onto the floor. Instead she forced herself to swallow it down, keeping her eyes defiantly upon Kefflin, not wanting to give him or the guard the satisfaction of knowing that they had hurt her.

"Tell me what I want to know and this stops."

Sam knew it was a lie.

This was just the opening gambit and he was testing them in the same way that a gambler tested his opposition at a gaming table. He had just made his first tentative bet and she had called it.

She instinctively knew that he was about to up the ante.

The guard's fist landed another blow to her face and the momentum sent her staggering back into the awaiting arms of his cohort who stood behind her. This guard clamped his hands around her arms effectively keeping her motionless as his companion kept up his assault with a succession of jabs to her abdomen. The result had her retching and heaving, her oxygen deprived lungs burning as she tried to force air back into them.

"Stop this!"

She could vaguely hear the signs of a struggle taking place beside her, along with Daniel's voice frantically calling out her name. She tried to look across at him, to reassure him that she was okay, but another back hand smashed across her face, splitting open the skin across her cheekbone, making her eyes tear up in pain.

"Please... you don't have to do this!"

Daniel's plea reverberated around the confines of the chamber, the level of his fear and anxiety evident in its high pitched timbre.

A sharp kick to the back of her legs sent her pitching forward. She landed on her knees with a dull thud, the momentum of the fall tearing a small scream from her throat as her arms and their shoulder sockets were pulled ever nearer breaking point. A follow up punch to the kidneys had her crying out again in agony and as the guard finally released her arms, a savage kick to her side sent her tumbling across the hard floor.

"Tell me to whom the blade belongs?"

Kefflin's voice sounded close to losing all control. So far he had left all of the dirty work to one of his goons, but she knew that pretty soon he wouldn't be able to stop the urge to get his own hands dirty.

Grimacing, her teeth clenched tightly against the pain that was reverberating through her body, she forced her hands under her and levered herself shakily to her feet.

She met his angry glare with a rebellious one of her own.

"Carter…Samantha…Lieutenant Colonel…United States Air Force…serial number…9954368."

"What does that mean?"

Kefflin practically growled out the words, his face creasing with angry frustration.

Her eyes left her captors and sought out Daniel's hoping that he would be able to read the message in them.

"It means she's not going to tell you anything," there was admiration tinged with concern in the tone of Daniel's voice, "and neither am I."

Kefflin stiffened noticeably, his whole body shaking with barely retrained anger, then as though a dam had been breached he swung back toward Sam, the firebrand moving in a blur of speed, striking her on the shoulder, sending waves of white hot agony searing through her body.

She tried to hold back the scream, but it tore from her throat as Kefflin pushed the point of the brand deeper into her shoulder. Her legs finally buckled under the onslaught sending her crashing painfully to her knees.

"You will tell me!" Kefflin's eyes were wide and ablaze with fury, his lips pulled back upon an almost feral snarl. "Which one of you did this?" He dug the weapon into the soft flesh of Sam's abdomen, sending her into agonising spasms. "Which one of you killed the boy?"

She could feel her body arching painfully with the force of the electrical charge passing through her.

It felt as if all her nerve endings were on fire.

Kefflin moved the firebrand away from her writhing body, giving her a respite that she knew wouldn't last long. He stepped over her prostrate form and made his way toward Daniel.

"You can make this stop. You can end her suffering."

Sam struggled to her knees and then back up to her feet, swaying slightly as she tried to get her legs to co-operate with a body that twitched and trembled in the aftermath of the firebrand's assault. She blinked against the tunnelled vision that threatened to consume her, seeking out and holding Daniel's horrified blue eyes.

She gave him an infinitesimal shake of her head.

Daniel held her gaze for a moment before he looked away, his eyes casting downward to stare at the floor at his feet.

"I have nothing to tell you."

"Oh you will, Dr Jackson, soon you will have a lot to tell me."

Kefflin stepped back from the archaeologist and returned his attention to Sam. The firebrand ignited once more, the tip pausing within millimetres of her face.

She swallowed heavily.

"Carter…Samantha…Lieutenant Colonel…"

The firebrand made contact with the soft flesh of her neck.

The scream this time sounded shrill and primal.

She didn't remember hitting the ground.

Across from her she saw Daniel struggling against the hold of his guards, his hands clenched into tight fists at his side, his mouth clamped shut against the words that she knew wanted to spill forth.

As she felt the firebrand strike her again, his eyes snapped shut, blocking out the scene taking place before him.

At that moment her pain receptors overloaded and she embraced the oblivion that swept her away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_How much pain and suffering can a mere human being endure before the myriad of threads that binds us to our fragile psyche starts to fray and disassemble?_

The thought ran through Daniel's mind, over and over again in a continuous loop as he sat slumped against the hard bulkhead of the attack vessel. He leaned his head against the cool metal of the ship and listened to the persistent throbbing at his temples as it beat in unison with the ships engines.

The pain in his head and the coppery taste of blood in his mouth made him feel nauseous, but it wasn't the only reason that he felt nauseated.

Ever since they had been brought back from their last visit to the interrogation chamber, he hadn't been able to snatch his eyes away from the shadowy bundle that lay cradled in his lap. She was still, for Daniel frighteningly so, and only the soft rise and fall of his hand resting on her abdomen confirmed that she was still alive.

Sam.

It had been six days.

Six days since they had been ringed up from the planet's surface. Six days of constant physical and emotional pain, of hearing the firebrand crackle into life followed by the acrid smell of burning flesh as it made contact with her unprotected skin.

Six days of hearing her heart wrenching screams, as tormented as any souls stranded within the seventh ring of hell.

Six days of watching someone you deeply care about being beaten to the point of unconsciousness, willing her to just go under, because only then would the hammer blows stop raining down upon her ever weakening body.

Worse than any torture was the sense of guilt that insidiously devoured his heart at the thought that all of this had partly been his fault.

No matter how noble his intentions had been.

In the end he had inadvertently betrayed her.

Daniel had been surprised at how long it had taken him to finally crack, it had been a whole lot longer than he had expected. Watching Sam being tortured was the hardest thing he had ever had to witness, and when he had broken, it had taken an unexpected turn, one he hadn't seen coming and with hindsight he should never have embraced.

Daniel's mind wandered back to that fateful encounter.

_They had been left in their cell for most of the morning before Kefflin had sent his guards to bring them to him. Although battered and bleeding, her skin tender and raw from the burns inflicted by the firebrand, Sam had refused to show any outward sign of her suffering. She had stood ramrod straight, her weakened body forced by her willpower alone to walk unaided out of the cell toward the chamber and their awaiting torturer._

_There were no formalities this time. Kefflin continued his interrogation where he had left off the night before._

"_Which one of you is responsible for killing the boy?" This time the commando knife was held between his hands, the dulled tip pressing slightly against the skin of his middle finger. "It is futile to resist and you will only encounter more pain by your continued silence."_

_Daniel had refused to react. _

_Kefflin's face had remained a mask of indifference, almost nonchalant, apart from a tiny flicker of his right eye._

_The blow from the guard's baton came without warning, the impact sending Sam crashing to her knees, tearing an agonised moan from her mouth. The second blow caught her in the kidneys, her body arching backward as she tried to sustain the agony within. The guard stepped forward sliding his baton against the exposed skin of her throat and two handed he had wrenched the baton back, choking Sam in the process._

_Daniel hadn't been able to stand by and watch anymore. _

"_Stop it!"He had taken a darting step forward only to have one of the guards grab his arms and yank him back. "Can't you see you're killing her!"_

"_Tell me what I need to know."A small, almost unnoticeable, smile had tugged at the corner of Kefflin's mouth at the sight of Daniel's distress. "To which of you does the knife belong?"_

_The interrogation chamber had filled with the strangled gasps of his friend as she struggled to breathe, her face becoming an ever darkening red, her hands clawing ineffectually at those of the guard that held the baton to her throat._

_It had reminded Daniel of the death throes of the young boy on the planet's surface._

"_TELL ME!" _

_The hand holding the knife tensed before releasing, sending the blade soaring into the air before it embedded itself inches away from Sam's right leg._

"_It was me!" Daniel screamed, the sound of his voice raw with emotion. "I did it!"_

_At a curt nod from Kefflin the guard had pulled the baton away and took a step back. Sam fell forward, the palms of both hands stopping her forward momentum as she braced them against the deck. She pulled in a lungful of precious air, wheezing as it caught in her damaged windpipe causing her to retch. _

_The contents of her stomach made acquaintance with the interrogation room floor._

"_You!" _

_Kefflin's incredulity at Daniel's confession was masked by the anger in his voice. Snatching up the firebrand from where it had been resting he had stalked over to where Daniel stood, bringing the inactive tip of the weapon up under the archaeologist's chin, causing him to flinch as the cold metal met the warmth of his exposed skin._

"_You killed the boy?"_

"_Yes!" He had nodded in the direction of Sam who was shakily gulping in more air, her body trembling with the effort. "You have your answer, you don't need to beat her anymore." _

_The firebrand lowered slowly, only to be replaced by the unexpectedly hard impact of Kefflin's fist as it made contact with Daniel's jaw. The strike caused his head to snap to the side, and his mouth to fill with blood._

"_He was my son." Kefflin's lips had thinned into a narrow bloodless line, and eyes that before were cold and malevolent now shone hot with unrestrained fury, "you killed my only son."_

"_Oh Sweet Jesus!" _

_Sam's exclamation had been hoarse and soft but Daniel had heard it all the same. It was as though at that moment she had been channelling his own thoughts._

"_He was sixteen!" The timbre of Kefflin's voice began to rise steadily. "He was but a boy!"_

_The firebrand flashed into life and Daniel had only a moment to steady himself before Kefflin thrust it into his midriff. Hot searing pain coursed through his body, igniting within him every nerve ending and fibre. Daniel sank to his knees, a scream tearing from his throat as the agony intensified. _

_Kefflin's eyes had become manic, his lightly concealed anger now a torrent of unrestrained rage. He pushed the firebrand harder into Daniel's stomach, forcing him onto his side. It had felt as if his blood were boiling and he could swear that he could smell his flesh igniting beneath his clothing. _

_He had twitched and jerked upon the floor like an insect caught in an electrical field. _

_His vision had begun to grey out._

"_It wasn't Daniel!" Sam's voice still hoarse from her choking broke through Daniel's pain fogged mind. "It was me. I killed your son."_

_He should have recognized that she wouldn't let him take the blame and the punishment for something he hadn't done._

_Her sense of honour and duty just wouldn't allow it._

_Kefflin moved the firebrand away from Daniel's shaking body and turned his attention back to Sam._

"_First neither of you take responsibility for the death of my son and now it would appear that both of you do." Kefflin turned back toward Daniel, the firebrand sparking into life again. "I admire your noble sentiment Colonel."_

"_It's the truth... if you don't believe me," Sam's voice had become stronger, tinged with a calmness that Daniel knew must have belied the anxiety that she must have been feeling within, "then check with your men as to whose scabbard was empty when they brought us in."_

_Daniel's mind had screamed silently for Kefflin to ignore her protest, knowing in his heart the consequences that awaited his friend. But of course Kefflin hadn't heeded Daniel's silent request and the guards had confirmed her story._

_Daniel had been hauled to his feet and a brief glance passed between him and Sam. There in the depths of her blue eyes he had seen the gratitude that she felt for his attempt to save her from the fate that now awaited her; and briefly he saw the sorrow that she felt at the realisation that he was going to have to witness her continued suffering and probable death. Just before they hauled her away from him the carefully constructed military shield slipped down once more and her fiercely held determination reasserted itself._

_Daniel had watched, totally shattered by his unintentional collusion, as Kefflin's fury became a torrent of rage directed solely toward his best friend. _

"_Trust me when I say Colonel Carter, that for you death will be a long and agonising journey."_

_So far he had been true to his word._

Daniel sighed and closed his eyes against the unwanted memory.

God!

She had taken such a severe beating, and had done every day since then.

All because of him.

Because he, in his naïve stupidity had thought that confessing to the knife would take some of the pressure off of her and direct the savagery instead toward him.

Instead of saving her, he had made it a million times worse.

Jack had been right. Sometimes he just didn't think. He acted on his own moral sensibilities without thought or fear of the consequences. Now the woman laying motionless and broken in his lap was paying the ultimate price for his naivety.

He honestly didn't know how much more she could take? Her body was becoming weaker with each and every beating and the scars and burns on her body seeped blood and puss that only served to weaken her more. With the little water that the guards gave them, Daniel had set about cleaning her wounds each evening, hoping, probably in vain, that he could at least keep sepsis at bay.

Daniel shifted slightly against the bulkhead, ignoring the pneumonic drill that started tearing up the sidewalk in his head. Even so that slightest of movements sent bolts of lightning flashing through his brain, sending his senses spinning in a carousal of dizzying movement. Hot liquid bile cascaded up his throat and into his mouth. His stomach objected, contracting violently and he had to move his head quickly to the side so as not to retch up that morning's meagre meal all over Sam.

He wiped a shaky hand across his mouth, appalled at his body's lack of control.

Concussion.

It was nothing compared to Sam's injuries, just a reminder from the guards of their presence whenever he gets out of line and tries to break free of their restraint. His voice is also raw from all the pleading and screaming that makes up his days now.

A soft moan caused him to look down. She was stirring, the first time she had moved in hours and it sent a jolt of relief cascading through him. Tenderly he slipped his hands further under her body, pulling her slowly against him, until her head and back were braced against his chest. Her head rolled to one side, and a small shaft of light from the ceiling above provided him with an up to date glimpse of the damage that had been inflicted upon her.

Her blonde hair was matted with a mixture of dry and wet blood. Her left eye was grotesquely swollen. The gash on her cheek looked angry and puckered, and blood had seeped from her nose, coursing its way across her bruised and battered lips, staining them red before it had pooled at her chin to drip and slide down her neck.

She moaned softly, unintelligible words spilling from her as her body started to stiffen and then thrash against him as she subconsciously relived moments of her torture. Not for the first time since this ordeal began Daniel whispered soothing words against her ear, some in English but many in the strange Latinesque language of the Ancients. The melodic words calmed her, even though he knew that she didn't understand them and she settled back against him, the tension leaving her muscles in increments.

When he pulled back a little to see if she was alright, he found her watching him.

"Daniel?"

Her voice was slurred caused by the unnatural swelling of her lips and tongue. She moved slightly, wincing as pain lashed against her body.

"Easy," he ran soft fingers across her brow, "take it easy, Sam."

He moved his hand away from her and returned moments later with a small cup of water. Tenderly he lifted it to her lips and watched as she sipped at the tepid liquid. After a couple of mouthfuls she pushed the cup away, and settled back against him, but not before he noticed the grimace of pain that contorted her features.

Her breathing was laboured and he could hear a rattling wheeze as she struggled to take in each shallow hiss of breath through clenched teeth.

It was a worrying sign in a catalogue of worrying signs.

"How long was I out?"

"Hours," he shook his head slightly, "I don't know how long, but it seemed like forever." His fingers unconsciously began to smooth across her brow once more, and he watched as she briefly closed her eyes at the touch. "I didn't think you were coming back this time," his voice caught slightly upon the last word, "I was sure he was going to kill you."

"And deprive himself of his sadistic pleasure," she shook her head, wincing at the movement, "he isn't ready yet. I haven't even begun to pay the price that he wants to exact from me."

Daniel tore open a pocket on his combats, the sound of the tearing Velcro loud within their prison cell.

"He knows just how far to take it…how far to go…to the edge of the abyss and no more," she was quiet for a moment as though contemplating her next words, "and there is much, much worse to come."

"What do you mean?" Daniel's hand moved gently across her face, wiping away the blood with a moistened piece of cloth torn from his green bandana. It was the last semi clean piece of material that he had and he was getting more and more concerned that he was running out of clean things with which to treat her injuries.

He concentrated upon his movements, trying not to dwell upon the worrying feelings that Sam's words had invoked within him. The cloth brushed against her swollen lips and he heard a hiss of pain escape from between her clenched teeth. Quickly he moved his hand away, cleaning the bloodied material in the small cup of water by his side. As he moved his hand back, Sam's fingers curled tightly around his wrist stopping his movements.

"Daniel," her determined blue eyes glistened with unshed tears, "this is going to get much worse. You're going to have to start preparing yourself."

"For what?"

A solitary tear escaped its confinement and trickled slowly down her bloodstained face. He desperately wanted to brush it away, but Sam's fingers were holding his hand with a vice like grip.

"For the fact that I'm not getting off this ship alive."

"Sam!" Daniel finally managed to extricate his hand from hers and continued his slow and gentle cleaning of her face and neck. "Don't talk like that."

"It's true."

She went to say more but an unexpected bout of coughing stopped her in her tracks, causing her body to contract and shudder in pain.

"AHHH! GOD!"

"Sam?"

Daniel's worried voice resonated around the empty chamber. He watched as she clutched at her ribcage, her mouth pulled back in a twisted grimace, her hands shaking against her body with the effort of fighting down the pain.

"Sam, what is it?"

"My ribs…" she gasped, "…can't…breathe."

He moved her hands away as he gently lowered her to the floor.

"Let me check you out."

He pulled the soiled BDU jacket apart, raising the bloodstained tank vest so that it exposed her torso.

Even in the semi darkness of the cell he could make out the purple, black bruising across her ribcage. Silently he cursed both Kefflin and himself for letting this happen. He ran his fingers across her torso until they settled over her ribs and slowly he began to softly palpitate the area.

"Please…don't…" Sam whimpered.

From the unnatural feel of her fourth and fifth ribs he could tell that they were at the very least cracked, but more likely broken. He just hoped to God that she hadn't punctured a lung.

"Crap!"

He moved his hand away and turned instead to his own soiled BDU jacket. He tore it off his body and wadded it up into a ball, placing it under her head like a pillow. Then he pulled his black tee shirt over his head.

"It's gonna need to be strapped."

He began ripping his tee into long strips.

"Daniel…listen…to me," each of her words was punctuated with a gasp, "I'm… not…making it…off … this ship."

She began coughing again, rolling onto her side, hugging herself around the mid-drift, pulling her knees up tightly against her body.

A spray of blood peppered the floor beside her.

"Oh Jesus!"

Daniel looked away, closing his eyes against the bloody evidence that he had seen on the floor. He ran a shaky hand across his lips before opening his eyes. Turning back toward her, he used one of the strips of tee shirt to wipe the bloody mess from her mouth.

She was staring at him, her eyes wide with understanding.

"Let's get you strapped up."

Daniel bent down toward her, slipping the long dark strips of cotton under her back and wrapping them around her torso. As bandages went they were woefully inadequate and he doubted if they would do the job of keeping her injured ribs immobile.

"Sooner or later… he's going to tire of the game," Sam's voice had lost some of its gasping weakness, "when he does…" she let the rest of her words trail off unvoiced but not unheard.

"They'll find us before then."

Daniel sounded more confident than he actually felt. He fastened off the last piece of fabric and gently covered the makeshift strapping with her vest. Scooting further up her prone body he pulled the wadded up jacket from beneath her head, and shrugged it back on. Then he positioned himself behind her, his back braced against the bulkhead so that his bare chest became her pillow. Gingerly he pulled her back against him.

"They've got to be looking for us by now."

"Where would they start?" There was an edge of scepticism in Sam's voice. "I doubt that we are still in orbit around the planet. It'll be like looking for the proverbial needle within a galactic haystack."

"They'll find us, Sam, they'll use the telemetry from our locator chips."

He felt her body soften against his as she relaxed against him. He was already dreading the long night ahead and more so the morning to come, for he feared the outcome should Sam have to face another beating from Kefflin. He couldn't get the sight of Sam coughing up blood from his mind and his worries were only more compounded by the knowledge that she was probably bleeding internally.

Would she even be alive come the morning?

Cold despair seeped through his mind and body making him chilled to the core. Losing Sam would be like losing a part of himself. He gazed down into her slackened face as she rested fitfully against him. He ran unsteady fingers gently through her matted hair, trying to soothe himself with the knowledge that for now she was still alive. He bent his head and placed a soft kiss upon her brow, feeling the hot warmth of her fevered skin and the steady beat of her pulse on his lips.

He pulled away and rested his head against the metallic bulkhead of the ship and closed his eyes. He knew he wouldn't sleep tonight, but he could at least rest.

"Prepare yourself, Daniel."

Sam's words echoed softly around the chamber.

"No! I'm not going to lose you. I refuse to think that way."

"He's going to kill me. It's in his eyes. I see it every single time he lays a hand on me. He's keeping it in check, but eventually he'll let it go and when he does there will be no hiding from it."

He felt her hand smooth across his, opening his fingers and softly entwining her own amongst them. She held his hand tightly, pulling it toward her battered mouth and placed a series of soft kisses upon the back of his knuckles. He closed his eyes and savoured the sensation, letting it take him away from this hell of a place if only for the briefest of moments.

"Daniel, there's something else you should know."

Sam's voice had taken on a regrettable tone, as though she was going to impart some awful truth.

"What is it?"

Opening his eyes, he gazed down upon her sad but determined face. Tears shone in her eyes before slipping over the parapets of her lashes and cascading down her cheeks.

"There's a torture method he hasn't used yet," her watery blue eyes met with his and held them with the force of her gaze, "there's another way to torture a woman."

New tears seeped from her eyes and he realised that she wasn't crying for herself, she was crying for him.

"It's only a matter of time before he uses it, and when he does," her hand squeezed his so tightly that he let out an audible gasp, " when he does, Daniel, you have to promise me."

"Promise you what?"

"You have to promise me, you won't break."

"Sam…"

"You'll want to, Daniel." Her grip lessened a little on his hand, " You'll want to tell him everything. You'll want to tell him just to make it stop. You can't do that, Daniel. Under no circumstances can you do that, no matter what he makes you see."

"Sam, what the hell are you…"

"Think about it...," her voice softened then, and she grasped his hand between both of hers, "think about what he hasn't done to me yet?"

Daniel stared at her until comprehension hit him like a bolt of lightning. He opened his mouth to speak but no words formed on his lips.

He shook his head in denial.

"You can't mean he'd…"

"Wouldn't he?"

Daniel's free hand curled into a fist and he beat it against the floor in frustration.

"I won't let him do that to you."

"You won't have a choice. They will make you watch. They will use what he does to me as a lever to use against you, but you mustn't cave in, Daniel. Promise me you won't tell them anything. Not the whereabouts of the others, and especially not the iris codes."

He looked into her battered face, at the blooded broken lips and at her bruised cheekbones. Behind the hurt and pain he could still see her steely determination and wondered how the hell she could just keep on going.

"I can't make that promise. I don't think I could witness something like that without trying to do something about it." He shook his head softly. "You're asking too much of me."

Sam's hand ran smoothly over his face, her fingers rasping against his days old stubble. It was an intimate gesture, one that normally she would never have contemplated but he knew that she was trying to derive some kind of comfort from their shared closeness.

"No matter how bad it gets tomorrow. No matter how violating or humiliating the torture, I will handle it. I will handle it Daniel, as long as I know that I can count on you." She tried to smile, but with her injuries it looked like a twisted grimace. "I'm going to need you in a way that you could never have expected. I'm going to need you to be strong…for me…" her fingertips smoothed across his lips, "…for us."

"I'll try."

He bent his head to hers, covering her mouth with his own. He felt her lips yield against his as she returned the kiss, felt it deepen as they sealed their promise.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Sweet Mary Mother of God!

Eyes seasoned with combat experience swept the interior of the interrogation room before settling on the inert form of Samantha Carter's body. He hardly recognised her. Her face was a bloody, battered pulp, her left eye swollen shut, her lips a distended mess. The top half of her clothing had been torn or cut away exposing a multitude of black and purple bruises upon her chest and torso.

Kneeling beside her, his hands pressed firmly against the deep wound in her stomach was Daniel Jackson. Blood bubbled over his fingers as he tried to staunch its flow. To the man in the doorway it looked like a fruitless mission judging by the ever expanding crimson puddle that was forming around her body.

"Don't die on me. Oh God! Please don't die on me," Daniel's voice whispered softly in the room, "stay with me, Sam."

Cameron Mitchell's eyes took all this in within a space of a few seconds. His initial shock was quickly replaced by his seasoned training and his mind swiftly went into its practiced routines.

"Medic! We have a man down! Repeat we have a man down and I need a medic down here stat."

He sprinted across the threshold of the room, hurdling over the motionless bodies of the two guards that he had recently dispatched, dropping to his knees beside his colleagues. The warmth of Sam's blood seeped through his BDU pants as he knelt in it, but he didn't let it distract him from tearing open his med kit and pulling out a pressure bandage.

Prying Daniel's hands away from her abdomen he tied the bandage in place as tightly as he could before replacing the hands upon the stark whiteness of the cotton.

"Keep applying pressure."

He keyed his radio again.

"Where the hell is that medic? She's bleeding out down here."

Yanking off his BDU jacket, he draped it over Sam's exposed chest attempting to protect his friend's modesty.

"Please don't let her die," for a moment Mitchell thought that Daniel's plea had been meant for him, but as the soft words began repeating themselves he realised that the mantra had been meant for a much higher power, one he wasn't even certain that his friend still believed in anymore, "she can't die... not now... not after everything she's been through."

Mitchell looked at Sam's pale and waxen features, at the blue tinge that was beginning to appear around her lips and hoped that the deity on duty today would smile down on them and perform a miracle.

"Sir?"

The Colonel turned toward the door to find the medical team at its entrance. He ushered them in and they immediately got to work, assessing the situation and calling out orders to each other as they slipped into their own well practiced routines.

One gently removed Daniel's hands from the now blood soaked bandage.

"Let us take over now, sir."

Daniel nodded slowly and stood up, stepping away from the scene so that the medics could do their job. He looked totally alone, abandoned within the sea of chaos that now surrounded him. Sam's precious life blood dripped silently from his fingertips, each tiny drop seeming to take with it a small piece of the anguished archaeologist as it struck the floor.

For the first time since he had entered the room Mitchell took a moment to take in Daniel's dishevelled appearance. His BDU's were torn and soiled, the jacket hanging open, exposing his bare chest, a brief glance toward the ripped remains of black cloth that surrounded Sam's body gave the Colonel an idea as to how his tee shirt had been utilised.

There were bruises and cuts upon Daniel's face and now that Mitchell could see him up close he couldn't help noticing the glazed unfocused shine to his eyes and the pallid hue of his skin, the telltale signs of a concussion if he ever saw one.

Mitchell nudged him with his elbow.

"Hey buddy... perhaps you should get the docs to take a look at you too?"

"I'm fine."

Daniel's eyes were focused intently upon the frantic ministrations of the medics as they proceeded to insert plasma lines and saline drips into Sam's arms. They seemed to be having trouble finding veins in which to insert their needles and they spoke in hushed whispers to one another as they desperately searched for viable alternatives.

Mitchell knew that no amount of coaxing would get Daniel to admit that he was in need of his own medical intervention, not as long as Sam was the focus of his attention.

When they finally had everything in place, the medics gingerly lifted Sam onto a stretcher, making sure that the lines supplying her vital medication didn't get tangled or kinked. As they lifted the stretcher, Daniel reached out and took one of Sam's limp hands into his own, he raised it to his lips and tenderly kissed her fingers.

"You have to come back to me, Sam. You can't let that bastard win."

Daniel stood for a moment longer, staring at her broken body before reluctantly releasing her hand. As he turned away from the medics his shoulders began to heave silent sobs.

Mitchell watched the tears slip from Daniel's anguished eyes.

"Sir, we need to go."

One of the medics looked quizzically toward the Colonel, his face showing that he didn't know how to interpret the unaccustomed show of intimacy that he had just witnessed between the archaeologist and his fallen colleague.

Mitchell nodded toward the door, voicelessly given the medics permission to leave. They departed the room in haste, carrying their critically injured patient between them, leaving Mitchell alone with Daniel.

"Jackson, are you okay?"

For long moments they stood in silence amid the chaos of medical supplies, the coppery smell of Sam's blood permeating the air around them. Mitchell stared at the slowly congealing puddle on the floor and wondered what the hell had taken place in this room, knowing that whatever it was, it had almost broken the man that stood before him.

"Where is he?"

Mitchell looked up.

Daniel's voice was no longer the soft and anxious tone that he had used earlier when he had entreated Sam to fight for her life. Now it had the sharp edged tone of a man barely in control of his emotions.

"Where's who?"

Mitchell knew he was stalling, but he wasn't certain that he wanted to have this particular conversation right now.

Daniel spun around to face him.

Gone were the tears and sorrow that he had just witnessed. Gone was the impotent man he had seen standing before his dying friend. The burdens of loss had been tossed aside, replaced now with an all encompassing anger that came off of Daniel's body in tangible waves.

Cold blue eyes locked with those of the Colonel.

"Don't play games with me Mitchell. What happened to him?"

"Jackson…"

"Please tell me he didn't escape," Daniel's eyes narrowed, "tell me she didn't go through all this for nothing. Tell me he's dead!"

"We can talk about this later, once the medics have had a good look at you, that's a nasty concussion you have there, Jackson."

Mitchell shouldered his P90 and turned to leave the room, hoping that his team mate would trail after him.

All he wanted to do now was to get the hell off of this ship.

"Don't you dare walk away from me!" Daniel's anger was so palpable that Mitchell could almost feel the words as they stabbed into his back. He heard footsteps as Daniel strode toward him. "You owe me the truth!"

Mitchell closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. There was no way that he could tell Daniel what he knew, his friend just wouldn't understand it. Hell, he didn't understand it, but then he never damn well understood the machinations of the IOA.

The silence in the room stretched interminably, the two men frozen in place as though they had become statues. Mitchell didn't know what to say. The truth, he knew, Daniel would never accept and he had nothing else to give him.

He tried the only other tactic available to him under the circumstances.

"Let's go home, Daniel, you need to see a doctor," he turned in the doorway to face his friend, "and Sam needs you."

Using the rawness of Daniel's emotions left an unwanted bitter taste in his mouth and it was already beginning to gnaw away at his conscience. Watching the last of Daniel's defiance melt away only made him feel worse. As he staggered passed him, his shoulders slumped, feet shuffling in resignation and exhaustion, Mitchell put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze.

"Come on buddy."

Together they walked along the long winding corridors of the attack vessel, Mitchell supporting Daniel's flagging body with his own. It seemed as though every last ounce of energy had been expended and Mitchell wasn't quite sure exactly what was keeping his friend upright anymore.

Daniel had become quiet, uncomfortably so and Mitchell had no doubt that he was brooding about Sam's likely fate. Truth was he was worried about it as well, she hadn't looked good and he had become accustomed to reading the look on the medics faces.

He hadn't liked the look that he had seen.

He hadn't liked the inevitability of it.

He could only pray that Sam Carter would have the strength to prove the medics wrong.

They passed a couple of open storerooms as they made their way to the ring platform. Mitchell glanced into one of the rooms, noticing that it contained a small contingent of airmen and a solitary prisoner. He looked away, disregarding the scene and concentrated once more upon getting Daniel home.

However, his charge staggered a couple more steps before abruptly stopping.

"Hey buddy," Mitchell encouraged, "the ring platform is just a couple more minutes away."

With a show of strength that belied his exhaustion, Daniel suddenly pushed Mitchell aside, knocking him momentarily off balance and sprinted back toward the storeroom.

"Hey! Jackson!"

Regaining his feet, the Colonel tore off after him. He heard a muffled commotion from inside the storeroom along with an authoritative command.

"Sir! Put down your weapon."

"Crap!"

Mitchell skidded to a halt just inside the doorway and stared at the tableau taking place inside. Two SF's had their weapons drawn and pointed directly at Daniel's chest. The third lay on the floor at Daniel's feet, unconscious and obviously minus his weapon because Daniel had the Beretta in a two handed grip pointing at Kefflin.

"Stand down!" Mitchell waved his hand frantically at the nearest SF, motioning him to lower his weapon. "Stand down!"

The guard's eyes slid from Daniel to the Colonel and back again, his grip on his weapon tightening fractionally.

"I said stand down! That's an order!"

"Sir, Doctor Jackson..." one of the guards began, but Mitchell cut him off,

"I can see what Doctor Jackson's doing."

Stepping further into the room, Mitchell deliberately placed his body between those of the SF's and Daniel.

"Airmen, don't make me repeat myself."

The guards exchanged a brief glance toward each other before slowly lowering their weapons and replacing them in their holsters.

"Get out my way, Mitchell!"

Daniel's voice sounded as hard as granite and just as unyielding as it echoed around the small confines of the room.

"You don't wanna do this!" Mitchell turned his back on the SF's and their prisoner to look at his friend."Trust me, you don't want to do this."

Daniel's face was a mask of anger and hatred.

His normal placid blue eyes were large and wide, his nostrils flared, his breathing quick and ragged. His lips were pursed into a thin, almost bloodless line and his hands didn't waver as he kept his weapon trained on the prisoner.

Mitchell had never seen him look so dangerous or determined.

"Get out my way!"

Mitchell shuffled a couple of steps to his right, giving Daniel a clear line of fire, from the corner of his eye he saw one of the SF's slip his hand toward his weapon and raised a hand stalling him.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Kill him!"

Daniel's index finger squeezed ever so slightly upon the trigger.

"Look…Daniel... " Mitchell knew he had to try and talk him out of what he was contemplating, "I know how you feel."

"You couldn't possibly know how I feel!" Daniel's eyes burned with anger as he swept them from Mitchell toward Kefflin. "You didn't see what that bastard did to her!"

He took a step forward, bringing the gun up level with Kefflin's chest.

"Okay…Okay."

Mitchell raised placating hands.

Tears welled in Daniel's blue eyes and he blinked them angrily away.

"Do you think it was easy watching him beat on her? Do you think it was easy hearing her scream day after day knowing there was nothing I could do, that there was no way that I could ease her suffering?"

"Daniel,"

"He's nothing more than an animal, a sick, rabid animal. He doesn't deserve to live, he doesn't deserve to be locked away. He deserves to be put down."

"Daniel, this isn't you."

Mitchell wanted to get his friend's attention away from the avenue he had just started travelling down. Jackson was the teams moral compass, always had been and always would be. He knew that the rational Daniel Jackson would never contemplate deviating from that line of reasoning, but he had gone through a lot recently and worse still he had been made to see a lot.

Things he wouldn't ordinarily want to be a part of.

It had shaken his belief in himself and his impotence at not being able to help Sam, in her moment of need, was playing on his moral conscience.

It was threatening to sully his soul.

"Think about this, Daniel, think about what you're doing?"

"I don't want to think about it! I don't want to reason it away. He deserves to die for what he's done, for what he was about to do."

Daniel's eyes levelled with Mitchell's and a look passed between them.

"Did you think that I'd ripped her clothes apart in my attempts to stop the bleeding?"

"Daniel, you don't have to..."

"Yes I do!" The gun in Daniel's hand wavered slightly, fractionally pulling his aim off target, "I want you to know the kind of bastard you're trying to protect!"

"I'm not trying to protect him!" Mitchell jabbed a finger at the prisoner, "I'm trying to protect you."

"He cut them away. He cut them away with her own knife. The same one he used to stab her, the one she used to kill his son." Tears streamed down Daniel's face, he took one hand off the gun to wipe them angrily away. "She tried to warn me. She knew what he was going to do."

He shook his head in silent disbelief.

"I was watching him all that time, watching his face, his hands," Daniel gripped the weapon even tighter, "the son of a bitch was looking forward to it."

A single shot rang out, its report almost deafening in the small confines of the storeroom.

The two SF's brandished their weapons in an instant, levelling them at Daniel.

Mitchell threw his hands up in the air.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!"

He turned to Kefflin, expecting to see him dead, and was slightly relieved to see him clutching his left shoulder, rivulets of blood seeping through his fingers and running down his hand. His face held a quizzical expression as though he had a grudging admiration for the man that had just wounded him.

Mitchell turned his attention back to Daniel.

"Jackson! That's enough!"

"He was going to rape her!" Daniel shrieked, "He was going to rape her and he was going to make me watch! He was going to use it as a means to get me to tell him the iris codes, then when he had what he wanted he was going to kill her with her own goddamn knife."

Daniel's anger fuelled eyes locked with Mitchell's.

"Let me kill him, Cam. Let me do this!"

Mitchell stepped to Daniel's side, until he was close enough so that only he could hear his words.

"If you do this, you will hate yourself, maybe not today, but someday soon," he glanced into Daniel's watery rimmed eyes, "do you really think this is what she wants?" His hand reached out to softly touch Daniel's arm. "Do you think she'll want you spending the rest of your life in jail?"

"It'll be worth it."

"You'll lose everything that is meaningful in your life and even when he is dead, he will win."

Mitchell squeezed Daniel's arm softly, lowering the gun. At first Daniel resisted, but then he felt the muscles in his arm relax, until the gun finally hung limply at his side.

Taking the gun out of Daniel's hand, Mitchell stowed it safely in his waistband. He looked into the eyes of the man that he had come to regard as a friend, seeing for the first time just how close he was to the edge of the abyss.

"Let us take it from here."

The military officer and the archaeologist stared at each other for a long moment, before Daniel finally blinked his assent. Mitchell nodded in relief and squeezed Daniel's shoulder.

"You are amateurs!" Kefflin's voice drifted across the storeroom, its acidic tone dripping contempt. "You let your moral sensibilities dictate your actions. You should have let Dr Jackson kill me, you should have let him take his revenge."

A smug sneer flickered across his lips.

"You will rue the fact that you let this moment pass."

"Shut up, Kefflin," Mitchell said.

"Should she live, I assure you that Colonel Carter will rue it even more."

Kefflin's grey eyes locked with Daniel's.

"Unlike you Dr Jackson, I am not easily swayed when it comes to exacting my revenge. She will pay for killing my son," he hesitated, licking his lips as though to savour his next words, "maybe I shall wait until she is fully recovered, until her injuries have sufficiently healed."

Mitchell could see Daniel tensing, see the first flickers of doubt skirt across his face.

"She is a beautiful woman, with a most desirable body, wouldn't you agree, Doctor Jackson?"

A muscle in Daniel's jaw twitched sharply as he reacted to Kefflin's words.

"It would be all the more satisfying to partake of a healthy Colonel Carter, all the more challenging to quell that defiant spark that she has. In taking her, I shall break you and when I'm done I shall make sure that she leaves you with a lasting memory of all you have lost."

Daniel surged forward, but Mitchell was quicker, pivoting swiftly upon the balls of his feet, bringing the barrel of the Beretta up to dig painfully into the soft flesh beneath Kefflin's chin.

"I stopped Jackson killing you because that is not who he is," Mitchell's thumb cocked the hammer of the pistol, "I on the other hand have no such qualms about blowing your head off."

"Then do it!"

"That would be too easy, wouldn't it?" Mitchell dug the barrel of the pistol deeper into Kefflin's jaw causing the other man's head to tilt back. "We're not the amateurs that you think we are and you don't own the copyright on torture."

"You don't have the stomach for it!"

"Don't be so sure," Mitchell's voice turned cold, "we have extraction techniques that will make your blood run cold, thanks to our old buddies the Goa'uld." He took a step back, making the pistol safe as he did so. He stowed it back inside the waistband of his BDU'S. "We have this little biddy doo-hickey." He made a motion with his fingers to show its small size. " 'bout the size of a marble, steel, covered with spikes, it was a favourite device of Anubis. It goes inside your head, messes with your brain, downloads every shred of Intel that we need."

Kefflin looked doubtful, a scornful sneer spreading across his mouth.

"You don't possess the technology to make such a device work."

"Actually, we do," Daniel took a step forward so that he was standing next to Mitchell, "we have this technical genius, brilliant at back engineering alien devices so that they interface with our own technology." His smile when it came was cold, devoid of emotion. "In fact you've met her," Daniel took a step nearer to Kefflin, until they were almost nose to nose, "you spent the last seven days trying to kill her!"

The unexpected punch landed squarely upon Kefflin's jaw, sending him sprawling onto his ass. Before he or the others had time to react, Daniel was on the prisoner, hauling him to his feet, throwing him against the hard bulkhead of the storeroom, pushing his forearm against the other man's throat, choking off his airway.

"Jackson!"

Mitchell tried to prise him off, but Daniel stood firm, leaning his whole body into the attack.

Kefflin spluttered, his uninjured arm clawing at Daniel's forearm trying to ease the pressure against his throat.

Daniel leaned in further, his lips pulling back into a feral snarl.

"If she dies, so help me, I will use that device on you myself. I will cleave you open, take what I want and then dump what's left of your carcass smack bang in the middle of your territory, but not before I've spread the word of your willing co-operation."

Kefflin's eyes began to bulge from the lack of oxygen and his facial pallor turned a nasty shade of deep puce.

Daniel eased the pressure slightly, pulling away, but leaving his forearm still resting against Kefflin's throat.

"You'll be lucky to last a week."

He took a step back and Kefflin slumped to the floor, the alliance commander wheezing as he struggled to take in much needed air.

Daniel turned around and walked away, ignoring Mitchell's attempts to stop him, barging past the Colonel none to gently and exiting the storeroom.

Mitchell looked down at the slumped man at his feet.

"Get him out of here."

The two SF's obliged, pulling Kefflin up from the floor and supporting his weight between them as they half dragged him out of the storeroom.

The Colonel crossed over to where the unconscious airman still lay, pressing his fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse. It was strong and steady and hopefully the only ill effects he would feel would be a bad headache. No doubt his buddies would fill him in on what he had missed. He knew with certainty that Jackson's unaccustomed lack of control would be the talk of the SGC once everything settled down. He sighed again and keyed his radio.

"This is Colonel Mitchell, I need a medic down in the storeroom adjacent to the gate room. I have an unconscious airman."

He waited for a confirmation that a medic was on his way before exiting the storeroom in search of Daniel.

He found him sitting on the floor just outside the storeroom, his back braced against the bronzed bulkhead. He had his head propped in his hands, his fingers massaging his temples.

Mitchell squatted down in front of him.

"You okay?"

Long moments passed before Daniel slowly raised his head and met the Colonel's questioning gaze.

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

Mitchell smiled.

"I know you're in pain, doozie of a concussion and all but," he nodded in the direction of the storeroom, "you feeling better now you got that out of your system?"

"Not really," Daniel answered truthfully, "still think I should have killed him."

"For a few seconds back there I thought you were."

Mitchell extended his hand toward Daniel, who accepted it gratefully and allowed his colleague to yank him up off of the floor.

"That was a nice save, Jackson."

Daniel staggered as he tried to remain upright.

"I could have killed him. It would have been so easy," he ran a shaky hand through his hair and squinted at Mitchell, "but you were right. It's not what Sam would have wanted and if she had been here she would have stopped me."

"You betcha ass," Mitchell confirmed.

He watched as the blanket of exhaustion and anxiety wrapped around Daniel once more, his eyes staring off into the distance as his thoughts turned once more to his critically injured friend.

"Sam's tough, " Mitchell's hand squeezed reassurance into Daniel's shoulder, "she'll pull through this."

A small flurry of doubt passed across Daniel's eyes before he locked it steadfastly away. He nodded his agreement and started off down the long hallway toward the gate room.

Mitchell watched him go, reflecting on everything he had witnessed this day.

He tilted his head up toward the bronzed ceiling above him.

"If you're up there Grandma, do me a favour. Speak to the big man, put in a good word for Sam and bring her back, it's not her time."

He turned his gaze once more toward the staggering figure of Daniel Jackson as he made his unsteady way down the corridor.

"While you're at it, put in a good word for Jackson too!"


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Okay this is the final part. I hope you have enjoyed my little walk on the dark side. As always let me know what you thought of the story, reviews mean a lot to me and help me to decide whether to continue with this wonderful little sideline of mine. :-) Rest assured that Pariah has not been forgotten, I'm just having a little writer's block coming up with a plausible way for Pritchard to get his overdue comeuppence!**

**Enjoy.**

**Chapter 6**

_He knocks her to the ground, the floor rushing up to meet her at a rapid pace. As she makes contact with the hard surface corkscrewing pain ricochets around her damaged ribcage as the air is squeezed from her lungs in an explosive rush._

_His hands are all over her, grappling with her on the floor, turning her over until she is lying on her back. Her own feeble attempts at fighting him off are hindered by her weakened state. Effortlessly he straddles her, caging her beneath him and she begins to feel the panic begin to swell from the deepest part of her psyche._

_This is really going to happen, the nightmare scenario that every female in the military dreads and she knows that no amount of military training or forbearance can staunch the fear that now begins to well up inside her. Desperately she tries to take herself to the place that the trainers had taught her to retreat to, the place where she can lock away her mind, her emotions, keeping them safe and unsullied._

_But that safe haven is denied her._

_As his rough hands begin to pull at her clothing, she begins to struggle anew, clawing at his arms with her fingernails, trying to push him away from her with her hands. _

_The hard blow across her mouth causes stars to explode behind her eyes and her mouth begins to fill with metallic tasting blood. _

_He fumbles with her soiled BDU jacket, tugging at it and she can hear the tearing sound that it makes as he pulls it free of her body. Dizzily she tries to focus, but her vision is blurred and all her energy seems to have drained away. She can feel the cold metal of the blade as he places it between her t-shirt and stomach, hears it slicing through the un-resistant fabric and makeshift bandages that Daniel had wrapped around her battered and broken body, exposing her._

_Oh God! Daniel!_

_She is aware of his plaintive screams, his hoarse pleadings with Kefflin to stop this unnecessary violation of his friend, but she knows that his words will fall upon deaf ears._

_Already she can feel her tormentor's gruff hands upon her body and she suddenly feels nauseous. Turning her head to the side she tries to block out the sensations, tries to keep her eyes firmly closed, but despite her valiant efforts they flicker open only to find Daniel's terror stricken eyes boring into hers._

_They are water filled, his tears brimming upon over-laden lashes. Fear emanates from every pore and fibre of his being. She watches him struggle to break free from his captors, his neck muscles cording with the effort._

_She has never seen him look so desolate…so distraught._

_The cold, jagged steel of the blade presses against her throat._

"_Look at me!" _

_Kefflin's voice is icy cold, devoid of emotion. He pushes the blade deeper into her skin, it burns as it cuts a small furrow into her neck. _

"_I said look at me!"_

_Tearing her gaze away from Daniel, she stares into the eyes of the man whose torture methods know no bounds. She sees the hatred in his eyes and knows that this is the endgame, that she will not be coming back from the nightmare that is about to befall her._

_Kefflin's mouth captures hers in a hard and brutal rendition of a lover's kiss. _

_She almost gags at the intrusion. _

_His free hand fumbles with her belt buckle._

"_No!" Daniel's scream rents the air. "Don't do this. Please don't do this!"_

_A burst of automatic gunfire breaks through the periphery of her hearing, sounding hollow in the distance. Kefflin looks up, startled by the intrusion._

_Another burst of gunfire…closer this time._

_He pulls the blade away from her throat, his mouth twisting into a disappointed grimace._

_A surge of adrenaline shotguns through her body and she tries to concentrate it where it can do the most good, sending a ferocious right hook toward the side of Kefflin's head, but his free hand intercepts the blow, squeezing hard upon her wrist until she gasps with pain._

_His eyes narrow, their greyness as cold as a winter morning. She sees the shift in their depths, the last vestiges of his self control melting away, leaving only rage and the hunger for revenge._

_She knows that her time upon this world is nearly over._

_Red hot agony sears through her abdomen where the commando knife enters, its serrated edge ripping through muscle, tendon and sinew._

_Her blood curdling scream echoes through the interrogation chamber._

"_NOOOOOO!"_

The force of the nightmare catapults her awake, her heart beating a wild tattoo inside her chest, threatening to break free of its human restraints. Her body is drenched in sweat and she is trembling uncontrollably. It takes several large gulps of air before she starts to feel the adrenaline start to subside.

Pushing the covers away from her, she slowly sits before swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Gingerly she tests if her shaking calf muscles will take the weight of her body, when they show no signs of protest she rises slowly, steadily and makes her way to the bathroom. She switches on a small nightlight that is housed over the basin and begins to run the faucet. She fills a tumbler with cool water, raising it to her lips, her hand trembling so much that she has to steady it by wrapping her other hand around her wrist.

She downs half the contents of the tumbler in a series of long gulps, feeling the coolness of the water flow down her throat until it reaches the pit of her stomach, where she promptly retches it back up again. She holds onto the basin tightly as her body purges itself. When the retching ceases, she rinses the evidence away before sipping at the water again, using it to rid herself of the unwanted after taste.

Putting down the half empty tumbler, she uses her hands to scoop up large handfuls of water and bathes her red hot face with its coolness. Slowly she is coming back to herself, as she always does on these nightmare filled nights. As her body finally begins to settle, she pulls a fluffy bath towel from the rack and towels herself dry.

She leaves the sanctuary of the bathroom and crosses into the lounge.

The room is cool, the air con keeping it at a constant temperature, keeping at bay the stifling heat of the summer months. As she is naked, she contemplates returning to the bedroom for a bathrobe, but decides against it. Instead she crosses to the window, opening the blinds slightly so that she can stare out at the night beyond.

Nothing moves in the street, no nocturnal pedestrians making their way homeward. She glances at the clock on the mantelpiece, its illuminated dial registering the lateness of the hour. She knows that she will not sleep, not now, not after the vividness of the nightmare, so she continues to stare out into the night, allowing her memories to run unfettered through her mind.

_As the knife enters her abdomen it causes unimaginable pain, on a scale that she almost cannot comprehend. Shock and blood loss soon rob her of any viable means of communication, as first her speech centre and then her vision fails. She tries to fight the overwhelming tiredness that suddenly engulfs her, but she no longer has the strength to do battle. _

_She feels Daniel's desperate hands pressing into her abdomen and can hear his trembling voice as he pleads with her to stay alive._

_Slowly, steadily, everything in the room darkens, the blackness of the void beckoning her toward the inevitability of her fate. Reluctantly she feels herself drifting away from this reality and the calmness that she feels surprises her._

_Her only regret is leaving Daniel alone to cope with the aftermath._

_She is therefore surprised to awaken in a hospital bed, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of an ICU ward. She starts to choke on the breathing tube that is lodged in her windpipe and flails around with leaden hands as she tries to reach for it._

_Her panic only subsides when she finds herself staring into the soft blue depths of Daniel's relieved eyes. His voice calls for the medics and the suffocating tube is removed allowing her to breathe unaided once more. Her throat is raw and she finds that she cannot voice the multitude of questions that now make a rush toward the forefront of her mind. Daniel once again comes to her rescue, brushing cool fingers across her brow, reassuring her that once all the medical checks have been completed he will fill her in on everything that she has missed._

_She can't help but notice the greyed out pallor of his skin, the dark shadows under his eyes and the way that his clothes seem to hang off of his six foot frame. If he is ill, he hides it behind a broad smile, catching up her hand and softly kissing the back of her knuckles. _

"_Welcome back!" _

_The rest of his greeting is interrupted by the medical staff as they hover around her bedside. He takes a few steps back, allowing them to do their work, but his eyes never leave hers until one of the nurses almost forcibly ejects him from the room. _

_The promised debrief doesn't materialise that day, nor during any of the following few days as the unending battery of medical tests and visitations from most, if not all, of the SGC conspire to keep her and Daniel apart. When she sees him again she notices that he is looking a lot better. Gone is the deathly pallor, the sunken eyes and the scarecrow look, replaced now by a healthy glow to his cheeks, a bright shine to his intensely blue eyes and a more nourished look._

_He sits at her bedside, his hand cradling her right hand in his, the back of his thumb absently stroking across the skin at her wrist as he begins to explain everything that had happened after Kefflin's savage attack with the knife._

_She had coded three times, once on the ship and twice on the operating table. The medical team had fought diligently to save her as first one and then other major organs began to fail._

_After stabilising her, she had contracted sepsis, the infection blazing through her weakened body as though it were a forest fire. It swept away every ounce of energy that she had mustered in her defence, leaving her in respiratory failure. She had been on the ventilator for almost two weeks, the machine doing most of her breathing for her. Whenever they had tried to wean her off of it, she had relapsed and the breathing tube had to be reinserted once more. Intravenous antibiotics had slowed the rate in which both the infection and its secondary condition – pneumonia- spread through her waning bodily systems, threatening to shut them down again._

_Daniel's narrative stilled for a brief moment and she saw a dark cloud of grief flood his eyes. They had told him to expect the worse, that nobody with such a weakened immune system could be expected to pull through. Tears seeped from his eyes as he told her about the evening when everyone close to her had filed in the room, each in their turn saying their silent goodbye._

_He had been told that she would deteriorate in stages as the infection slowly overwhelmed her. Piece by piece her body would succumb and shut down. Her hearing would be the last to go and so he had stayed at her bedside, soothing her with his words, using the last of their time together reassuring her that she was going to a better place, but at the same time trying to coax her back to the world where she belonged. As she had slipped slowly away he had berated every known deity for their lack of understanding and cruelty in taking something so precious away from him._

_In his desperation he had even called upon the Ancients. Pleading with Oma to make an appearance, to at least take one so deserving of ascension into their midst, but no such appearance came and he had been left waiting for the inevitable to happen._

_Then she had rallied. _

_Against all known expectations she had started to beat the infection back, but still the medics had been cautious, citing cases where a sudden rally was almost always countered by an equally sudden and final relapse._

_Daniel had sat patiently by her bedside and waited for the outcome of that final battle._

_When she had opened her eyes and started to choke on the breathing tube, he had known without a doubt that she had won her struggle. There would be no more relapses, she had fought her way back to the land of the living, she had fought her way back to him._

_She hadn't called him on the intimacy of his rhetoric._

Her mind snaps back to the present, to the quietness of the room in which she stands and she feels an overwhelming peace wash over her. She is alive, when nearly everyone and everything had given up on her. Even up to this moment she doesn't know how she did it. In all honesty she shouldn't have, so maybe Daniel's pleas were heard after all and one of those deities had given him his miraculous wish.

Getting back to peak physical fitness had proved much harder than she had anticipated, mainly down to the extent of her injuries and some of their underlying complications. Her physical scars were healed, her mental ones slowly fusing together and the nightmares didn't assault her consciousness as often as they had done.

But there had still been times when she had felt that her career was over, that she would be either pensioned off or sent to do some research work in a remote location far from where she had wanted to be.

An envelope had stayed with her during the most daunting of her setbacks, when she had awaited the recommendations from the Air Force medical boards as to her fitness for deployment in a frontline field unit. Inside was a concisely worded letter, resigning her commission, effectively walking away from the project that she had nurtured through its infancy and beyond.

The envelope had never been needed and she had burned it when the news came through that she had passed all the various tests.

She was back doing what she loved, off world missions.

Back with SG-1.

Back with Daniel.

Everything had been getting better, to the way that she had wanted it to be. Slowly she had been getting her life back. Then tonight, for no reason that she could think of, the nightmare had arrived out of the blue and had shattered her previous contentment.

She shuddered in the coolness of the room as her mind dwelt upon the now fragmenting nightmare. She hadn't expected it to be so raw, to be as vivid, not after all this time and even though its grip was waning, it still left her feeling vulnerable.

Samantha Carter didn't do vulnerable very well.

Blinking back the tears that threatened to fall she let out a long soft sigh and turned back toward the window, pulling apart the slats in the blind and looking out at a world that she thankfully still belonged to.

She felt a pair of soft, warm hands encircle her waist, a tip of an index finger tenderly stroking over the puckered scar on her abdomen. A small knowing smile crossed her lips and she allowed herself to relax, to be pulled gently back into the warmth of his body until her back was touching his chest, his hands protectively splaying against her stomach. As she settled against him her eyes slipped shut and her hand unconsciously moved away from the window blind to join her other as she placed them over his.

"Bad?"

His voice was low, almost a whisper in the silent room.

"Yeah, pretty bad."

"Want to talk about it?"

He placed a tender open mouth kiss on the base of her neck where it met her shoulder.

"There's nothing to talk about, it plays out the same every time and you know everything that there is to know," she turned in his embrace, her hands slipping gently over his skin to circle around his neck, "you were there."

His kiss feels like a butterfly fluttering against her lips, gentle and undemanding. She returns it, reaching up on her toes to get more of a purchase, pulling his head down to meet hers as she deepens it. He pulls back from her, running his finger down the side of her cheek, his thumb brushing across her lips.

"Come back to bed."

His fingers entwine with hers and he guides her back toward the bedroom. Once ensconced inside the bed, she nestles against him, her head resting snugly against his chest, listening to the familiar and reassuring sound of his heartbeat.

His fingers trace lazy patterns across her back.

"Daniel?"

"Hmmm."

"He thinks I don't cry enough."

"Dr Mackenzie?"

She nods her affirmative against his chest.

"He thinks it's a sign that I'm not fully accepting what happened and that without that acceptance I can't move forward with my life."

She dragged her fingers across his skin.

"What do you think?"

As always his words are soft and coaxing, gently urging her to take out the psychiatrists words and turn them over in her mind so that she can analyse them.

She is quiet for a long time before she finally answers him.

"He doesn't see me when I'm with you, when we're like this," she pulls away from him, her hands moving swiftly to cup his face between her fingers, "he doesn't see the tears I cry in your arms, the howls of anguish that rock me to my very core. He doesn't see me shatter into a thousand pieces as you hold me, only to have you cement me back together again."

Her kiss this time is stronger, more demanding and he responds in kind, opening his mouth to her on a soft moan. Their tongues duel against each other, stroking and sliding tenderly over and around before Sam swipes hers across his full bottom lip.

This is still so new to them, the crossing of the line from friend and colleague to lover a recent addition. Their previous line of demarcation is still there in their minds eye, its indentation deep from the decade that they had stood so firmly behind it, its existence proof of their shared denial of each other. They know that in time it will fade, to disappear altogether, replaced with this new, stronger dynamic that is **them**.

They break the kiss to suck in air, resting their foreheads against one another, feeling the warmth of each other's breath against their faces.

"Don't ever underestimate how much I need you, Sam." Daniel's voice is soft, his fingers smoothing a furrow through her hair. "Without you I would splinter into a myriad of broken shards, each with the ability to fatally pierce my heart." His hand lowers, encircling her waist, pulling her further against him until the heat of their naked bodies merge. "Without you, I would be cast adrift within the darkness, forever lost in a chasm of anger, despair and overwhelming guilt. You are my light, it is you that gives me hope."

With a slight shift of his weight he rolled her beneath him, covering her with his long broad body. His fingers cupped her chin, tipping it up slightly so that he could see her face in the dappled moonlight.

"You have accepted what happened to you, you have moved on." He paused and she knew that he was carefully choosing his words. "Not so long ago, when we first started this, you never would have felt comfortable being beneath me."

"I know."

Inwardly she acknowledges the truth of his words.

It had taken months of counselling before she had been able to banish the spectre that was Kefflin from her mind. Even then, just when she had thought that she was finally getting rid of him, he had come back with a vengeance to haunt her, and the ghost of her tormentor had chosen his moment well.

_It had taken a long time before what they both now knew_ _to be the inevitable happened. _

_They had spent months convincing themselves that their increased closeness was nothing more than a part of their joint rehabilitation. Every long night spent talking to each other and holding each other had been explained away as a coping strategy, a means of dealing with, and finding their way through the myriad emotions that surrounded their traumatic and life altering experience._

_The most profound life altering experience had been staring them in the face._

_It had been an epiphany of sorts, if a sweet and innocent kiss could be called such a thing. The kiss had been no different than the one that they had shared in the cell, but its effect had been overwhelming. In a brief moment of intimacy they had forever torn down the barrier that they had erected between them, even though they had tried at first to reconstruct it again. In the confused moment after the kiss they had tried to ignore its implication and Daniel had spluttered an embarrassed apology, before making his excuses and heading out the door._

_Stunned minutes passed before Sam was able to wrap her mind around what had happened, before the yearning she had kept carefully hidden away had finally unspooled and pushed her into action. Yanking the front door open she had almost collided with Daniel who was still standing on her front stoop. _

_Their eyes met for a long moment, the last of their reticence dissipating._

_There had been nothing innocent about their next kiss, for it was full of the hunger and desire that they had been denying themselves for so very long. The slamming of the front door hardly registered upon her senses as he had manoeuvred them back into the house, all she could concentrate on was the feeling of his lips devouring hers, the warmth of his hands as he pushed them under her top, touching her heated skin._

_Entering the bedroom was a blur, all she could remember was tugging at his clothes, wanting to touch him so badly that her fingers had been itching with their need. Clothes discarded they had set out to explore each other's body and he had felt so good that she had broken the kiss in order to taste his skin with her lips. _

_Daniel hadn't remained idle for long, his hands finding and cupping a breast, his thumb brushing seductively across one taut nipple, eliciting a moan from her that seemed to originate from her very core. The back of his knees bumped against the mattress of the bed and he sank down upon it, taking Sam with him, until they lay on their sides, kissing, touching, exploring each other with a lovers abandon._

_His fingers parted her, sliding through the wetness at her apex, his thumb brushing across the sensitive bundle of nerves at her centre. She had gasped as his thumb sent a shockwave of arousal coursing through her already over sensitised body. His mouth found her nipple and when he sucked on it the arousal had ratcheted up another level. She whispered his name, encouraging him, her pelvis softly thrusting against his hand. _

_He rolled her beneath him, his sweat slickened body covering hers, his lips returning to her mouth, his fingers poised to enter her._

_She froze!_

_Her mind seeing only Kefflin above her._

"_Please…don't." _

_It took a few seconds for Daniel's mind to catch up, lost as he was in the intimacy of the moment. His mouth left her lips, brushing softly against her cheeks, her neck, his fingers slipping gently inside her._

"_No!" _

_One word, plaintive, haunted, lost upon a ship thousands of light years away._

_Daniel pulled back from her, his fingers slipping tenderly from her body, his eyes searching for hers in the semi darkness of the room. _

"_Sam!"_

"_Don't. Please. Don't." _

_Her voice was tremulous, the fear evident in both its cadence and weakness._

"_It's me, Sam."_

"_No. Oh God! No." _

_Her body went rigid, her hands clamping around his biceps, her fingers digging into his flesh, causing him to gasp. Then she began to thrash beneath him, pushing at him, punching, scratching down his arms, opening shallow wounds._

"_Get off me!" _

_She threw a punch at his head, but he ducked away and the blow connected instead with his shoulder._

"_Get away from me!"_

_He rolled off of her, sliding his body to the side, giving her some space. Instantly she moved, scooting up to the top of the bed, her knees pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped protectively around them, tears streaming from her fear stricken eyes._

"_Sam, it's me, it's Daniel." He reached a hand out to her, but she pressed herself even further into the headboard at the top of the bed. "He's not here, Sam. You're safe."_

_Minutes stretched into what seemed like hours, the sound of Sam's hic-cupping sobs the only sound in the room. Slowly, she began to come back to herself, the wide eyed stare lessened, the rigidness of her body relaxing, and the sobs dissolving. Daniel sat at the bottom of the bed, keeping his distance. Finally, she blinked as she returned to her true reality._

"_Hey," Daniel said softly, not wanting to startle her._

"_Daniel?"_

"_I'm here."_

_Her eyes sought out and found his._

"_I'm right here, Sam."_

_She threw herself toward him and he met her halfway across the bed, engulfing her in a fierce hug, pulling her head to his shoulder as he laid a soft kiss in her hair. Her heart wrenching sobs rent the air and he started to rock her in his arms, soothing her with the only thing he had to give, the solidity of his body and the softness of his words. He spoke to her in the Ancient language that he had used all those months ago in the cell until she relaxed in his arms, until she had regained some semblance of her equilibrium. Then when her calmness had returned he had laid her back upon the bed, covered her over with the blankets and waited for her to settle into sleep. _

_She had awoken the next morning to find him fully dressed and asleep on top of the bed, one protective arm thrown around her._

_It was almost three weeks later when they finally made love and Daniel had insisted on being the submissive one, laying beneath her, letting Sam set the pace above him. Since then, gradually, they had been inching toward breaking through that last vestige of their nightmare, to the point where now Sam felt more comfortable beneath him, where she no longer saw the visage of her tormentor rising above her, but that of her lover._

"Mackenzie only knows what we choose to tell him," the sound of Daniel's words brings her back to the present, "and we choose to tell him very little."

His forefinger draws a lazy line across her collarbone, raising tingling gooseflesh in its wake. Sam stopped his progress with her hand.

"Daniel, we can't tell him about us. He works for the military, he'd have no option but to report it to the authorities."

"What about doctor/patient confidentiality?" There is checked exasperation in his voice and she knows that it's because this isn't the first time that they'd had this particular conversation. "Whatever we told him would have to stay between him and us."

She shook her head.

"I'm not sure it works like that with the military," she hesitated briefly, thinking over his words, "besides there are still the fraternization rules and God knows we are breaking so many of those right now." Releasing his hand, she used her fingers to softly comb through his hair, brushing it away from his eyes. "We just can't take that chance."

She kissed him softly, feeling him respond to the pressure of her lips upon his, feeling him settle his body further against hers, the evidence of his growing arousal unmistakable against her inner thigh.

"You do realise that technically..," Daniel's fingers slipped across her abdomen, tenderly stroking against her scar, "...we're doing nothing wrong. After all, in the eyes of the people of P5J 794 I'm making love to my wife."

Sam stifled a snigger.

"So you're going for the forbidden fruit defence?"

"I thought I might give it a try."

She kissed him again, letting all the passion and desire that she felt for this wonderful man flow from her body into his. She felt him accept it, cradling it carefully against his heart, letting it suffuse his soul.

"Daniel?"

"Hmmm,"

"I think I'm ready for you to make love to me like this."

He pulled back from her, looking deeply into her eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," her fingers moved to his neck, softly sifting through the soft hairs there, "it's time."

Without giving him a chance to respond she pulled him toward her, capturing his lips, feeling their warmth and wetness as they brushed tenderly against her own.

His fingers enticed her, enflaming her with arousal as they sought out areas of her body that he had learned to read so well. It still amazed her at how easily Daniel had come to know her, at how quickly he had learned where to touch her to elicit the right responses. It was almost as if she had become another of his memorised languages, so intense and fluent had he become.

She was still learning his language, learning by experimentation the subtle differences between the simpler words of his body and the complexities of his individual syntax. Like the man himself, his body was complex, wrapped within layer upon layer of enigmatic prose that she relished learning to understand. The need to know him like this, as he now knew her, was so overwhelming, it was like nothing she had ever experienced before, and she savoured every second of it.

His lips brushed against her nipple, sending shockwaves of pleasure cascading throughout her body. She was so incredibly sensitive to his touch that she could already feel the initial tightening of the coil deep inside her. His tongue flicked against the sensitised nipple and she let out a soft whimper as she felt her body arch against his, wanting more of his touch, wanting more of his skin against hers.

His hand ventured lower, crossing tenderly over her abdomen, slipping through the wet curls surrounding her apex before parting her and slipping two long fingers deep inside. A long drawn out moan accompanied this longed for intrusion and Sam felt her pelvis start its slow, steady thrust toward completion. His lips left the breast he was suckling and slanted once more across hers, his tongue slipping into her mouth, mimicking the thrusts of his fingers into her body.

She could feel the tension rising, the coil at her centre slowly tightening further, every fibre and nerve ending vibrating with the arousal that Daniel was stimulating within her. She could feel his hardness against her thigh, feel it pulsing against her flesh and she longed to feel it inside her. She slipped her fingers toward him, only to have him arch his body away from her.

Pulling his mouth from hers he looked into her eyes, before softly shaking his head.

"Not yet!" He sucked in a lungful of air. "Too close, need to pull back a little."

"Daniel," Sam's voice was deep and husky with arousal, "it's okay to put yourself first, it's alright to want to take the lead."

"I know," he placed a gentle kiss on her lips, "just not now, okay?"

It took less than a second for her to understand the meaning behind his words and their truth and sincerity brought a lump to her throat and tears to her eyes.

He wanted her so badly right now, so much that it threatened to overwhelm him, but he was afraid that he might get so lost in the sensation of being inside her that he might miss any sign that she might give of distress.

Miss any flashback that she might experience.

So afraid was he of unwittingly completing the nightmarish ordeal that Kefflin had almost started.

"Daniel, it's okay." She traced his brow with her fingertips. "I feel fine, I know it's you. He's not here anymore, he never will be." She cupped his face between her hands, slipping her thumbs across his cheekbones, "Don't deny yourself this." Her lips softly caressed his, his taut body shuddering at the contact. "I want to feel you."

"What if..,"

She silenced him with a finger against his lips.

"Make love with me, Daniel."

She quashed any further protest he might have with her lips, kissing him so intensely, her hunger and passion for him unmistakable.

There was hesitance in his response, but only for a moment, then he was kissing her back with all the yearning and craving that his aroused body could marshal. His fingers resumed their plundering of her body, his thumb joining in, brushing erotically against her.

Their bodies rubbed sensuously against one another, lubricated by the thin sheen of perspiration that now coated their heated skin. Their tongues tangled around one another, their mouths slanting this way then that, trying to find the perfect position.

Sam ran a hand across his back, following the line of his vertebrae, hesitating briefly at the base of his spine before smoothing her fingers across his tight ass.

Daniel's breath hitched.

She quickly changed direction, sweeping her hand across his hip, moving slightly beneath him, giving herself room so that her fingers could run down the length of him, encircling his hardness, positioning it where she desperately needed for him to be.

They broke the kiss, panting slightly from the combined lack of oxygen, the soft puffs of Daniel's breath, sweeping like tendrils of gossamer across Sam's skin.

"Sam?"

His voice was low, its tone soft and gentle, the question posed upon the sound of her name on his lips.

"Yes."

One word, almost an entreaty.

She felt his hips push forward, felt his hardness part her as he slipped slowly inside her.

Small spasms of pleasure radiated from her core as the mini orgasm shuddered through her. She gasped, involuntarily tensing her muscles, milking his length as the aftershocks dissipated.

From the moment of their first joining this had happened, each time he entered her she experienced the tiny orgasms almost as though they were the pre cursor for the main event. No other lover had ever elicited such a reaction from her, at first she had thought that it was just the mental stimulus and foreplay of knowing that she was going to be making love to Daniel. Now she was almost certain that it was something to do with Daniel himself. That somehow his size and length brushed or touched an over sensitised erogenous zone that had until recently remained elusive.

He pulled his hips back and then rocked gently back into her, her own pelvis now taking up the slow, tender rhythm of their initial thrusts. Her legs clamped around the back of his thighs, anchoring him to her as she pushed and rotated her hips, allowing the friction of the contact to excite her to new levels.

Her hands encouraged him further, splaying against the base of his back, pulling him against her with every downward stroke of his length. Their pace quickened as each began to feel the coils inside them winding tighter and tighter, as the feeling of being totally surrounded and filled by each other pushed them higher toward the pinnacle of their passion.

She was making soft, inarticulate mewling noises deep in the back of her throat, her mind narrowing from the wider world of their reality to only that concerned with the incredible feeling of Daniel within her, the sensation of his pelvis and hips as they ground against hers.

It always felt so good, so right to be in this moment with him, to lose herself in the sensations alone, to give of herself in a way that she had never given to another lover before. She could not hide from him, could not hold anything in reserve, he coaxed everything that she had from deep within her and she was learning more about herself, more about the true woman that was Samantha Carter with every intimate moment that they shared.

She was almost there now, could almost reach out and touch that moment when she became nothing more than mere sensation alone. She wanted it so badly, hungered for it so much, that she would do anything, anything to achieve that goal, even to the point of pleading with him to bring her to completion. If she had learned anything during their first few weeks together, it was that he could read her body signs so damn well that she had never had to articulate that need, that hunger to him.

As though reading her very thoughts she felt Daniel increase his pace, stroking her roughly, changing his angle and penetration depth so that each long, hard thrust hit that spot inside her that pushed her sensitivity levels higher and higher. She was moaning, gasping, her skin flushed and hot, whispering his name as though it were a prayer upon her lips.

His fingers brushed along her thigh, fluttered across her hip, slipped between the small space between their joined bodies and caressed her.

A super nova of ecstatic pleasure detonated deep within her, followed by spasms of cosmic contractions that rippled from her core along each nerve ending until they vibrated in sensual delight. As each cosmic wave abated another bore across the cosmos toward her, in an almost continuous tsunami of gratification. Clinging onto Daniel she cried out her delight, not wanting the sensations to end but knowing that they would be over in a matter of seconds. She felt him thrust in counterpoint, his own need now transcending hers as he reached his climax, emptying his seed deep inside her upon a hoarse cry.

His body shuddered with exertion, his muscled arms shaking with the effort of stopping himself collapsing upon her and crushing her with his weight. He heaved in gulps of oxygen, gasping as the air inflated his lungs. As he slowly came back to himself, he pushed away from her, intending to roll away and scoop her into his arms, but she stopped him, pulling him gently back to her, taking his weight and nestling his head upon the pillows of her breasts.

They were quiet, listening to the sounds of their bodies returning to normal after their lovemaking, taking in the simple pleasure of being held, of just being with one another.

After a while, Daniel shifted his weight, rolling them until she was laying across his body, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, his fingers softly massaging her back. His lips brushed against her forehead, leaving a trail of feather light kisses against her skin. She closed her eyes at the sensation, her body now languid with the need to sleep. As she slowly drifted toward slumber she heard the now familiar sound of softly spoken words, in a language as mysterious to her as the people to whom it belonged, the words suffused with such tenderness that it threatened to make her cry.

She was quiet for a long moment, her fingers caressing his skin. Then she moved back slightly, twisting her body so that she could look up into the darkened shadows of his face. "Daniel, I…"

He stopped her with a finger to her lips, stalling her words.

"You don't have to say it. I already know."

She quirked an eyebrow at his statement disappointed that he couldn't see her quizzical look in the darkness of the room.

"I was going to say, I'm glad I took that piece of fruit from you."

The finger that had been tracing the outline of her jaw stilled.

"Oh!"

She stifled a laugh at his apparent misconception.

"Guess you don't know me that well after all huh?"

"Guess I don't," his lips brushed softly against her cheek and she nuzzled into the touch, "that just makes it all the more fun, not knowing what you're going to surprise me with next."

She resumed her place against his body, her head resting against his chest, listening to the soft thumping of his heart.

She took a soft, deep breath.

" My heart is yours.

My soul is yours.

My strength I give freely, with no expectation of its return.

For you are my anchor in the storm.

My shelter from the rain.

The cradle in which I wish to lay."

Sam's voice faltered as she felt Daniel go still beneath her, felt him take in a sharp breath at hearing the words translated so perfectly. She pulled her head away from his chest, turned to face him again, reached out with her fingers to stroke across his lips and realised that they were trembling.

"It ends with the words Te amo," she kissed him softly on the lips, pulling back to watch him again, "it's Ancient for I love you."

"How?"

"I heard it so many times in the cell, as you comforted me, as you rocked me in your arms, as you took away the pain of the beatings." Her voice cracked slightly and she paused before continuing. "I could practically recite it myself. Each time you have used it to succour me, to take away the pain I was feeling and I never knew what it meant. What you were trying to tell me."

"But how did you?"

"I snuck into your lab when you were off world, when I was rehabilitating. I stole a few of your journals, the ones that had the Ancient writings in them. I copied them." She laughed softly. "Actually, you'd be surprised at how quickly you can pick up a language with the right motivation."

Her hand reached for his, grasping it, lacing her fingers through his. She placed a soft kiss upon each of his fingers, as she had done in the cell.

"All that time, Daniel. All those months, going back to that cell, going back to the times when you cradled my broken body in your arms. Your words acting like a balm, buoying me up, getting me through the torture, the beatings." She cradled his face in her hands, ran her thumbs around his cheeks and felt the wetness of his tears."All that time you were telling me that you loved me. That you wanted me, and I didn't know. I didn't have a clue."

"It wouldn't have been appropriate," his voice hitched, "you were dying, Sam, he was slowly killing you."

"I'm not chastising you, " she took a hand away from his face and traced a heart shape around the real thing as it beat rapidly against her fingertips, "I just realise how difficult it must have been for you. Watching that, seeing what he was doing to me, knowing you felt the way you did."

"Even if I didn't feel the way I did. Even if you were only just a friend to me, it still would have been just as unbearable watching him hurt you like that. Watching him garner enjoyment out of your suffering. You didn't deserve that."

"Neither of us did. You keep forgetting that you were a victim of his torture too." She bent her head and tenderly kissed him on the side of his mouth. "He was getting just as much pleasure out of watching you suffer as he was me," she paused, "maybe more so."

"My words calmed you, Sam." He ran a hand across her back, stroking her skin tenderly. "Whenever I felt you slipping away from me. Whenever I felt the fear of losing you completely, they comforted you and your calmness in turn comforted me."

"Daniel, I never want to see you look that lost again." Tears prickled her eyes. "I never want to see you look so desolate and alone as you did just before the knife…"

She shuddered, the tears falling freely now, soft hic-cupping breaths interspersed between her sobs.

"It's okay." He pulled her to him, kissing her cheeks, brushing away the tears with his lips. "You're here. You're safe. You're with me."

She settled back against him and he pulled the covers back over her chilled skin, pushing her further against his body heat. His arms encircled her protectively, holding her to him, threatening never to let her go.

He placed a soft kiss in her hair.

Her sobs slowly ebbed away as she settled into a comfortable silence against his body. She heard his breathing relax, settle down and knew that sleep was beginning to pull him under its spell.

"Daniel."

"Hmmm,"

She hesitated, weighing up the words she was about to say, knowing that they came from her heart, from the place where this special man now had permanent residence.

"Te amo."

**The End.**


End file.
